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o. 834 . notjiti.ii: ivijuiBEie 


SS®53=SS>: 


By MRS. ANNIE EDWARDS, 


17 TO 27 VaKdeWater 3 t 
ewYor^- 


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A Ballroom Repentance. 


BY 


MRS. ANNIE EDWARDS. 



/ , \ rl ^ 

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NEW YORK: 


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A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


PART L 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE DOLL TRIBE, GENERALLY. 

A PAIR of portmanteaus and a shabby violin-case.'’^ 
Lake Leman sleeps five hundred feet below; a plain of 
sajiphire, lighted up by gleams of emerald, by fitful opal 
shafts, that melt. Jura ward, into the crystalline air depths 
of sunset. In the middle distance a solitary lateen sail 
cleaves the blue. The opposite Savoy mountains, though 
August does but wane, are powdered with fresh-fallen snow. 
The swallows, already thinking of Africa, are trying their 
wings in figures of eight overhead. Oleanders, magnolias, 
and standard roses make sweet the garden of a certain Grand 
Hotel Scherer that towers among chestnut avenues and 
sweeps of vineyard high above Clarens. And the voice of 
Mrs. Scipio Leonidas P. Briggs breaks the stillness. 

A pleasant voice, despite its sing-song drawl, a voice sug- 
gestive of- hammock swinging, negro fly-flappers, starlit 
flirtations, and every insidious mixture of ice and alcohol 
that it has entered into the heart of South American man 
to concoct. 

My word, yes! That was about the figure of Mrs. and 
Miss Dormer’s luggage. A pair of portmanteaus and a 
shabby violin-case. My maid watched them as they rode 
round from the cars, i surmise their dresses are innocent 
of Worth or La Ferriere. I surmise their dresses just came 
out of some London dry-goods store. I spent a week in 
Loudon, last spring,” goes on Mrs. Scipio Leonidas, mourn- 
fully, and the fog so affected my dyspepsia I never got 
round to see the parks but once. That once was enough. 


6 


A BALLROOM REPEAT A ^fCE. 


My dear, there wasn’t a well-toileted woman there, except, 
of course, some of our people from home and a few Paris- 
ians. A gentleman friend of mine from ^sew York State 
remarked to me, ‘ The aboriginal ladies we see around us 
do not dress. They clothe themselves. And as for their 
beauty — I just guess,’ he observed, they look strong. Sol- 
irlly built up of beef and beer. Calculated to ride fox-chas- 
ing, and to resist the vicissitudes of wind and rain. Climate,’ 
my friend added, ^ is not a word for this longitude. You 
get a deal of mixed weather, mostly bad, in England. 
Climate there is none.’ ” 

Mrs. Colonel Scipio Leonidas P. Briggs — I love to register 
the lady’s full title, although she> herself, will not unfre- 
quently drop the final monosyllable — is a native of South 
Carolina, and despite her fragile looks is interviewing 
Europe with a will and thoroughness that might put the 
whole strong-minded sisterhood of Britain to the blush. 

The colonel — so Mrs. Scipio Leonidas confesses when she 
lias occasion to speak of her absent lord — is having a beauti- 
ful time over the other side. Oh my, yes! a lovely time. 
He is quite an unselfish man, this accommodating colonel; 
a pattern husband. They both hold emancipated ideas of 
the domesticities, Mrs. Scipio will tell you, within five 
minutes of your introduction to her. The colonel don’t 
M^ant her to cross back till she has swallov/ed all the differ- 
ent waters of the Continent. It’s the state of her gastric 
organs that’s her trouble, and none of the physicians in 
Europe can fix her up. Homburg, Carlsbad, Vichy, she 
has tried them all. Her life has been spent going round 
the mineral baths two years and more, and she is right 
down fagged and finished in consequence. My dear, yes! 
just look at her. And Mrs. Leonidas will languidly extend 
a taper, diamonded slip of a hand for your inspection. 
What is she? Don’t deceive her. She is a sallow, dyspep- 
tic bundle of nerves, now, isn’t she? 

She is a fine-featured colorless invalid, of two- or three- 
and-thirty, with large restless overbrilliant eyes, the foot 
(inadvertently, she shows it often) of a child, and the grace 
— of a South American. What simile could be found to ex- 
press as much? An invalid, more than half imaginary, 
precariously existing on a regimen of French novels, rich 
dishes, and mineral waters. A creature of the great Doll 
tribe, unquestionably; dressed, jeweled, satin-slippered. 


\ 

A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 

here among Swiss mountains^ as she was last spring in Pari 
or will be next winter at Naples or Florence; and still, l 
doll with a brain. In England we have dolls enow. Wax 
dolls^ wooden dolls, porcelain dolls, dolls that open and shut 
their eyes, that speak, sing, dance, some, even, that kneeh 
The doll with a brain is of foreign manufacture, chiefly 
American or French. Mrs. Scipio Leonidas has mixed in 
the vividest circles of Boston and New York, is brimful of 
advanced social theories, somewhat crude and garish, it may 
be, if you sift them finely; knows Italy like a guide-book, 
and is as well versed in recent Paris gossip of church, sen- 
ate, salon, and greenroom, as a genuine Parisian. 

Dinner is her weakness, dress her passion. She is of an 
organization so sensitive that the neighborhood of a cat, the 
odor of certain flowers will cause her to faint. And she has 
been known to travel from Biarritz to Madrid in the dog- 
days in order to be present at a bull-fight. 

Yes, a pair of portmanteaus and a shabby violin-case. 
So the lady resumes, for the benefit of such loungers as are 
drinking after-dinner coffee in the hotel garden. ‘^And 
Mrs. Dormer, one of your aristocrats, no doubt, a duke^s 
daughter, or baronet^s widow, or earFs second cousin, does 
not condescend to show in the public parlors.'’^ It is a 
boast of Mrs. Scipio Leonidas Brig^ that she cares not 
enough for lineage to distinguish one English title from the 
other. Yet, I suspect, if she should cross his path, the so- 
ciety of a living duke, or baronet, or even of an earPs sec- 
ond cousin, would not be distasteful to her. Surely you 
can furnish us with chapter and verse out of the Peerage, 
Mrs. Skelton. Wio are the owners of the portmanteaus 
and violin-case that they should give themselves airs when 
they travel round these lakes 

‘‘ Dormer — Dormer, repeats the j)ersonage addressed as 
Mrs. Skelton. Dian, my love, have we not heard that 
name before? yes — I recollect And the speaker draws a 
wisp of red shaivl virtuously around her thin angular shoul- 
ders. It will be found, no doubt, that this misguided 
young Farintyre, whom everybody pities, is in attendance 
on them. Miss Joyce Dormer^s latest victim. 

And future husband?^ ^ asks Mrs. Scipio Leonidas, with 
awakening interest. 

Ah, that is a very different matter. I knew the Dor- 
mers last winter, in Nice — by sight only. In my portion,- 


8 


A BALLEOOM REPEis^TAKCE. 


my dear Mrs. Scipio, no gentleman of the party, it is an 
actual duty to weed one^s traveling acquaintance, to keep 
clear if possible of scandal. My girls, you see, are so unso- 
phisticated ! Pansy and Dian, until we came abroad, never 
mixed in any but the best circles of Cathedral society, and 
our giddy little Aurora, of course, was still in the school- 
room."^^ 

A young English lad, tall, bronzed, Oxford-suited, stands, 
enjoying his after-dinner cigarette, and the view of lake and 
mountain, at some paces distant from these ladies. At the 
touching reference to our little Aurora^s giddiness, a smile, 
somewhat doubtful in its import, hovers around the corners 
of his lijDS. 

Miss Aurora Skelton is not exactly what in our Ameri- 
can circles we should call a Bud. I should judge Miss 
Aurora to be near upon my own time of life?^^ 

The tone of Mrs. Scipio Leonidas Briggs is friendly. She 
smiles like one who makes an amiable, but somewhat rose- 
colored concession to human weakness. Yet does her voice 
imply a query. 

Aurora^s mamma, too wary a veteran to be provoked to 
battle on so dangerous a field as age, changes the subject 
deftly. 

She is a sharp, chirruping, altogether terrible little old 
woman, this Mrs. Skelton; an old woman, dressed in the 
extreme of youthful mode, yet, withal, so patched, so pow- 
dered, so wizened, so shriveled, she looks as though she 
must fall to pieces at a touch. For a short half hour you 
might judge her, by reason of her frivolity, to be harmless. 
Mention her in any of the Eiviera pensions that are her 
v/inter haunts, if you would know the dejDth of emotion her 
name is capable of inspiring in the breast of unweddeA 
and unguarded man! Persistent and metallic is Mrs. Skel- 
ton’s voice; mirthless her jerky laughter. In lieu of hon- 
est gray hairs, a small pink cap is perched on the summit 
of her head. Her hollow cheeks are rouged; her smile is 
fixed upon the very newest principles and warranted; a 
smile glistening, adamantine as the longest established firm 
in Hanover Square can supply. She is a very libel on old 
age; a sermon — not in stones, but paste, and whose text is 
the rottenness and vanity of all human desii'e! Around 
her, 4n sallow greens, brick-dust crimsons, and dull golds. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


9 


are grouped a trio of elderly girls, each in an attitude, her 
daughters. 

My children are not handsome, according to rule,^^ the 
veteran will allow, ingenuously. As regards feature, in- 
deed, they take after the prebendary's family rather than 
my own. " This absent, never-appearing prebendary is a 
somewhat dark subject, brought forward only when the best 
Cathedral society fails of effect, as a garnish to Mrs. Skel- 
ton’s tallest talk. But dhev are the delight of artists, 
each in their different genre, ‘The Miss Skeltons are more 
than beautiful,' the great Thoreau said to me when we were 
last in London. ‘ The Miss Skeltons are deliciously, quaint- 
ly picturesque. ' ' ' 

So to the great Thoreau's charge, perhaps, may be set 
down the golds, greens, and crimsons of which we have 
spoken. 

The eldest. Pansy, is florid, stout, short, and in her thir- 
tieth year. Pansy dresses in chintz, with flame-colored 
“ housewife " pinafores, wears her hair in a tangle above a 
pair of beetling brows, knits socks for the poor, even be- 
tween the courses of a taUe cVMte dinner, and is ofttimes 
put warmly forward by the veteran, in the absence of the 
younger sisters, or in the neighborhood of curates, as a 
Home Treasure. 

The second, Diana, is tall, acidulated, intellectual; a 
Diana with a greenish complexion, a tip-tilted nose, im- 
provised eyebrows, and the least excellent voice that ever 
issued from a woman's lips. She represents the genius of 
the group; is seldom without a Cambridge text-book in her 
hands, talks about Greek particles and the Differential Cal- 
culus, affects the First Kepublic as regards her flow of dra- 
pery, and in feature is said, by her relatives, to resemble 
Charlotte Corday. 

Aurora, aged twenty-six, is peony-cheeked, laughing, indis- 
creet; the hoiden, the irrepressible, gushing, spoiled child 
of the family. On the present occasion Aurora wears a 
short white frock, a sash, and very brilliantly colored stock- 
ings. Her sleeves are tied, baby-fashion, on her shoulders 
with crimson knots, buttercups and daisies, in a wreath, are 
twined amidst her disheveled locks. “ The cottage maid of 
Wordsworth, who had a rustic woodland air," so Diana 
will whisper to you in sisterly confidence, “ is thought by 
painters to be well embodied in our little wild Aurora. '' 


10 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 

Yes, if we were at our own j^lace afc home, the naughty 
child would be in the school-room still, runs on Mrs. Skel- 
ton archly; but we manage, Di and I between us, to coax 
her sometimes to her lessons. Aurora is sadly backward at 
her French verbs — you are not a mother, Mrs. Scipio Leoni- 
das, you know nothing about these minor worries — and her 
arithmetic still falls short of the mark. On the other hand, 
her proficiency in music is beyond her years. Eora, mv 
sweetest, don^t you see that Mr. Longmore is hoping fo>r 
his after-dinner song?^^ 

To other eyes than those of maternal affection it might 
look as though Mr. Longmore were hoping for nothing; 
with so unexpectant an air does the young Oxonian enjoy 
his after-dinner smoke. 

Not brought down your notes? Now, Eora, that is 
only shyness, and, indeed, after the sums your poor papa 
and I have spent on your music, you ought to be able to 
sing without a book at all. I)onT you remember the 
bishop^s daughters in our charming Auchester circle? No, 
it was before your introduction into society. Pansy and 
iJian will recollect them. How quite too delightfully they 
were able to give us song after song without notes! On one 
occasion, when we were dining at his lordship ^s, I can re- 
call Mr. Archdeacon Prettyman observing — 

I know it would bore Mr. Longmore into fits to have 
to listen, interruj^ted Aurora, rolling her black eyes depre- 
catingly in the young Oxonian^s direction. Mr. Long- 
more, knows my songs by heart from beginning to end. 
He has told me so, often. And then the men are such 
horrid inconstant creatures! ‘One foot on shore, and 
one — ^ DonT listen, Mr. Longmore, I won't allow you to 
listen, of course w^e are not talking of you — they care for 
nothing but change and novelty. I declare Pll never sing 
to please a man again while I live. I vowed so only last 
night, didn't I, Di?" 

Mr. Longmore, at this pathetic declaration, throws away 
the end of his cigarette, and crosses the terrace. He 
glances down, as admiringly as he may, at the peony cheeks 
and shoulder-knots, the brilliant stockings, the disheveled 
locks, the withered daisies and buttercups of poor Aurora. 

“ You don't want me to re23eat what I have so often 
said — that it gives me pleasure to hear you sing. Miss 
Skelton?" 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


11 


A certain tenderness is in his voice, or his hearers think 
so. Aurora Skelton bridles, hangs down her head, then 
moves away toward the salon window. The girl is really 
prettyish, despite the exceeding vulgarity that comes to her 
by education and inheritance; has, at least, the negative 
charm of being fresher, fairer than her sisters. She has 
*also fallen in love, of an easy kind, with the good-looking 
undergraduate, who, during the past fortnight, has been 
vainly endeavoring to read ^^in the Grand- Hotel Scherer! 

And Hugh Longmore is weak enough to feel flattered. 

The young fellow, in very truth, has overhigh ideals of 
womanly grace and reflnement. Aurora Skelton, educated 
partly on the pavement of an English cathedral town and 
partly in the public rooms of foreign hotels, is a flirt, in the 
fullest acceptation of that most odious word. As well ask 
g'rapes from thistles as look for modest feminine charm in 
the daughter of such a mother! from her maiden bower on 
the second floor, Aurora casts down eye-shots at young 
Longmore, while her hair is still en ixi'pillote of a morn- 
ing. She intercepts him on his }yay to breakfast, pursues 
him from terrace to terrace, breaks in upon his morning^s 
reading in the remoter corners of the gardens, informs 
him, half a note flat, during the afternoon hours that she 
is ^Sveary alone,^^ fading away, or ‘‘owre young 
to marry and she jars upon every flner sense the lad 
possesses, at all times. 

But Aurora has bold black eyes, a pair of ruddy lips, 
white teeth, and a dimple in her left cheek. She has also 
a mother. And Longmore, unguarded by sister, cousin, 
or chum, is in greater peril than he suspects. 

Eefiried, fastidious youths, fresh from the cloisters of 
taste the most conservative, have ere this been seen to form 
life-long alliance with coarseness, possibly through chival- 
rous inaptitude at repulsion, possibly through some mys- 
terious physical affinity hard to understand. 

The rosemary, we know, will not live with the laurel, 
nor the laurel with the vine, nor the cabbage with the olive. 
Yet does garlic planted in the neighborhood of the rose 
supply the flower with a richer fragrance. 

‘‘ If Mr. Longmore wishes for his song, Aurora, run for 
your notes at once. That dear girks diffidence must posi- 
tively be got over,^^ whispers Mrs. Skelton into Longmore^’s 
ear when Aurora has obediently tripped away. You can 


u 


A BALLROOM REPEIS'TA^sXE. 


not think what it costs her, Mr. Longmore, even to sing 
before you. ^ I know Mr. Longmore is a finished critic/ 
the child will often declare to her sisters. ^ Such exquisite 
classic taste, such knowledge, such culture! If I could 
billy feel sure of his approval!^ 

Of my approval — madame/^ stammers Longmore, 
looking wretched. 

In my singing days I was in the light and comic style>^^ 
cries the veteran, skittishly tapping the young man^s arm 
with her fan. Indeed, there are some who still care to 
hear me in ^ Misthress Malone.*^ But Aurora is all for the 
pathetic. You know, Mr. Longmore, I am quite a believer 
in community of soul, and I must say you seem to have 
the same tastes in everything. Ah, Eora, my dear,''" the 
young lady at this moment ^^^eping forth from the salon 
window, a music-book under her arm, be sure you give 
Mr. Longmore something good and serious — ^ The Lost 
Chord," say, to lead off with."" 

And Aurora gives it him; out of time from first to last, 
and thumping a heated accompaniment, every third bar of 
which contains at least one wrong note. But Longmore, 
although a passionately keen lover of music, is not a stern 
judge to-night. The critical faculty, at two-and-twenty, 
is apt to be partial when a showy girl, more than half in 
love with one"s self, heaves palpitating sighs and flings up- 
ward melting glances through her eyelashes as she sings. 

The Lost Chord "" (how often do Aurora "s hearers 
wish that chord had been lost indeed!) is ruthlessly mur- 
dered. Then follows a massacre of Scliubert"s Ave 
Maria "" and of the Serenade "" of Gounod. Happily, 
there are states of mind in which a man can be distinctly 
possessed by two sets of impressions at once. Leaning 
over Aurora"s shoulder, patiently turning the pages of her 
book and enduring alike her wrong notes and her ogles, 
Hugh Longmore catches a reflected glance of Leman in an 
opposite mirror; can imagine himself on the lake’s blue 
breast half a dozen miles away, the dip of the sculls, the 
light lap of the waves, the trickle of mountain rivulets for 
music; his pipe, his ^schylus, and the delicious sense of 
being alone and unbored by companionship. 

By the time they return to the terrace, the sun has sunk 
over Jura" s purple crest; Venus shines tremulously in his 
wake; the light-forsaken mountains have gone from amber 


A BALLEOOM EEPEKTANCE. 


13 


to crimson^, from crimson to aslien gray. Already a few 
faint points of light stud the deep vault of heaven. 

The Earn, the Bull, the Heavenly Twins/" quotes 
Mrs. Skelton, playfully. '' I don"t know how the young 
ones feel, Mrs. Scipio Leonidas, but to me the air strikes 
chilly. Pansy, Lian, my loves, why not take a last turn 
round the gardens while you still have light? Coax some 
flowers out of Monsieur Scherer, if you can find him, for 
to-night" s ball. "" 

Thus craftily does the veteran ever dispose of her con- 
tingent of forces. Pansy and Diana have had, or have not 
had, each her day, they must leave Aurora an open field 
when Aurora"s star chances to be in the ascendant. 

As for you two delinquents,"" she cries, kissing the tips 
of her fingers with grewsome gayety to Longmore and his 
companion, I do not doubt you have some mischief still 
to plot together. Aurora, sweetest child, be steady! Don"t 
let your spirits run away with you. I am sure Mr. Long- 
more would like a description of that last Auchester Festi- 
val, and the delightful county people you and your sisters 
met at the palace."" 

Aurora replies by a burst of discordant Skelton laughter; 
and Longmore, with nerves absolutely set on edge by the 
sound, gives a moral shiver. Hopeful sensation for a man 
on the brink of folly; impossible sensation for a man on 
the brink of love! 

Ma does go on so about that dull old Auchester. As if 
I cared a fig for square-toed canons and musty bishops" 
palaces. "" Thus Aurora, dancing with infantine vivacity, 
shoulder-knots, buttercup wreath and all, along the ter- 
race. For my part, I never want to set foot in an En- 
glish cathedral town again. Do I look suited for stiff par- 
ties, Mr. Longmore, for clerical society, in general, and 
bishops" breakfasts in particular?"" 

‘^You ask me, honestly. I am afraid I must answer: 
^ no!" "" 

A place like Auchester did all very well for Dian. Di 
is so awfully clever. Fot a book you mention but she is up 
in it, and as to the magazines, Di can read eleven serials 
at once, and keep the eleven different love affairs clear in 
her head. Pansy, of course, was in her element because 
of the curates. I am not clever, as you, Mr. Longmore, 
must have found out, and with regard to curates — "" 


14 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


With regard to curates?'’’ repeats Longmore, as Au- 
rora Skelton pauses. 

The young lady is taken afresh with a fit of laughter, 
somewhat more hysterically discordant than the last. Bad 
creature that he is! What does, what can, Mr. Longmore 
mean? Curates, indeed! He will be asking her opinion of 
barristers next. A shame, that it is, to chaff her like this, 
but she, Aurora, knows what he is hinting at. Mr. Long- 
more is to be a barrister himself before very long, is he 
not? 

An alarming depth of meaning is in her voice. Young 
Longmore glances away toward the valley of the Ehone, 
away toward the mountains, upon whose topmost peaks the 
fairy-like pink after-glow has once more shone forth. 
Abruptly, the thought flashes on him that a train will leave 
Glarens Station for Aigle at seven thirty-five to-morrow 
morning. At Aigle a man has only to buckle hisTinapsack 
across his shoulder, start for the mountains, and — 

The one place on earth for me is London,” says Au- 
rora, shrewdly translating for herself the expression of the 
lad’s face, and becoming cured of hysterics on the instant. 

We have quite a legal connection in London. Aunt 
Julia, a sister of my papa’s, is married to Sir Joseph Sweet- 
ing’s cousin. The great Q. C., you know.” 

Longmore knows. How often has that apocryjDhal legal 
connection been tantalizingly waved, like the matador’s 
red flag, before the embryo barrister’s sight? 

And next season I hope to pay Aunt Julia a visit. 
You will come and see me, won’t you, Mr. Longmore, if 
you are in town?” 

I should be delighted at all times, in all places, to do 
that. Miss Skelton.” 

And we can look back to these happy Glarens days, ” 
says Aurora, speaking with the stereotyped little glow and 
little shiver, and punctuating the sentence with sighs. 
‘‘We shall have grown wiser, both of us. We shall won- 
der, I dare say, how we could ever have been so foolish!” 

“ We — you — will have abundant opportunity for hearing 
good music in London,” answers Longmore, returning 
Avith laudable presence of mind to his muttons. 

Miss Aurora Skelton glances at the young man sharply. 
He is still watching the distant valley of the Ehone, and 
his countenance does not play him traitor. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTANCE. 


15 


When I stay with my aunt Julia I shall he in the very 
highest musical circles, and T. S. can always run up from 
Aldershot to take me about to concerts and operas. 

T. S. is the fond abbreviation of Thomas Skelton/^ 
the only male hope of the family, and a lieutenant in one 
of her majesty ^s marching regiments; of whom we shall be 
forced to see more hereafter. 

^'Hearing the best professionals,^^ proceeds Aurora, 

or, if Aunt Julia is generous, a dozen good finishing les- 
sons would give my singing a little of the bravura style, 
would they not:^^ 

Finishing lessons repeats Longmore, his emphasis 
supplying unintentional irony. 

Yes. Just enough to learn a few show^ songs, you 
know. Of course IVe done with solfeggios.-’^ Aurora 
Skelton manufactures her barbarous Italian plural unblush- 
ing! y. What I want is bravura. I had a course from 

one of the best masters last winter at Nice, and that is 
what he told me I wanted — bravura. 

Longmore ^s eyes are still turned in the direction of the 
mountains, and he remains silent. The last changeful 
hues of the day that is dead have paled, refiushed, gone 
pale again. A greenish fiame-like luster shows forth in 
inky relief, the angular peaks of Oubli and the Jaman. 

La, gracious, if there isnT the moon! I do so love to 
see the moon rise. Like Emerson^s young lady, poor 
Aurora adores poetry, roses, the moon, the sky, and — cav- 
alry ofiicers. If we turn sharp round the left corner of 
the terrace, we shall see her come up over the Dent du 
Midi to perfection. 

And turning sharp round the corner of the terrace 
proves, as chance will have it, the immediate salvation of 
Hugh Longmore. 


CHAPTEE II. 

COis'CERKIlSrO OLD YIOLIlsS. 

For he and his companion are brought within focus of a 
balcony on the first fioor of the hotel. 

And across the balcony railing leans a girl whose eyes, 
even in this half light, see further than most people ^s, 
whose brain is rapid at deduction as a child ^s, and whose 


16 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAiq'CE. 


incisive promptness of action might quicken jealousy in the 
breast of an Alexander or a Bismarck. 

Across the balcony railing, serenely contemplative of lake 
and mountains — yet in the very mood of restless idleness 
that renders the human heart promptest at meddling in the 
love affairs of others — leans Joyce Dormer, the younger of 
the ladies whose violin case and whose excluSveness — it 
may be the attendance of whose Latest Victim — have fired 
so many feminine breasts in the Hotel Scherer with indig- 
nant curiosity. 

A girl in a sad-colored gown, tall, graceful, fair, and 
twenty; a girl slender of throat and limb, with a face on 
whose sweet outlines the peachy bloom of childhood seems 
yet to linger, hands so charged with expression it sets you 
dreaming of fine harmony but to look at them, and a pair 
of large, admirably lucid blue eyes. Such, at a glance, is 
Joyce. 

She catches sight of Longmore and his comjpanion, hears 
a scream or two of Aurora^s laughter, a burst of Aurora ^s 
mock enthusiasm, then draws hastily back behind a half- 
closed Venetian shutter and watches them: watches them, 
not that she may gather facts whereupon to rest a theory, 
but contrariwise. It is Joyce Dormer’s habit to feel ere 
she thinks, to judge of things, women and men by instinct, 
and at first sight. Facts have to fit themselves into her 
judgments, afterward, as best they may. 

‘ ^ Mr. Parintyre, come hither. ” 

Low is her voice and tuneful, yet does a certain slowness 
of utterance, a suggestion rather than an actual tone of 
weariness, contrast pathetically with her airy girlish figure, 
with the blooming summer of her face. 

A very fat, very blonde young man (of the order of men 
evidently whose fortune is in their i^ockets, not their brains) 
lies dozing on a sofa at some little distance. He rouses 
himself after one or two ineffectual efforts, rubs his eyes 
with both very fat, very blonde hands, then rises and, with- 
out much lover-like alacrity in his movements, crosses the 
room to Joyce’s side. 

Quite of the first water must be this young man’s tailor, 
idem, his haberdasher and boot-maker. You tliink of them 
all, tailor, haberdasher and boot-maker, at the earliest mo- 
ment of your introduction to him. You seem to hear the 
jingle of his money at every movement. Frankly vacuous 


A BALLKOOM KEPENTANCE. ’■ 17 

are liis round, reddisI>browii eyes, vacuous is the smile by 
which, no very perceptible jest to the fore, he shows the 
whiteness of his teeth. His expression is one of h^avy good 
humor, of contentment with the world that affords daily 
physical enjoyment to Mr. John Farintyre. And he wears 
ostentatious jewelry. Miss Dormer^s sway can, surely, not 
be so absolute over him as current gossip alleges. He 
wears ostentatious jewelry! 

Do you see those two people in the garden?^'' says the 
girl, beneath her breath. Do not look at me, please — I 
must tell you, Mr. Farintyre that you have fallen into a 
terribly bad habit of doing so, lately. And do not look at 
the sky above or in the lake below. Try,^^ pronouncing 
each word, syllabically, like one who smoothes down a hard 
sentence for a chikFs comprehension, ‘^to pull your scat- 
tered faculties together and to do simply and literally as 
you are bidden. You see that good-looking English boy, 
and the — the young person he is talking with on the ter- 
race yonder?^^ 

Joyce^s lover, if lover he be, shakes his head and rubs 
some still lingering mists of sleepiness out of his eyes. 
Then, in the perfectly level, flat voice whereby fatigued 
young gentlemen of the present day give expression to 
their feelings, he ejaculates : 

Longmore of Corpus, by Jove! With a lady. 
Longmore of Corpus, not with a lady,^^ repeats Joyce 
rather cruelly. Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Farintyre, 
that young poor lad is a college friend of yours 

Friend, observes Mr. Farintyre, is a strong word. 
Hugh Longmore and I were in different sets at Oxford — 
Of that I am perfectly sure,^'" interrupts Miss Dormer, 
with emphasis. 

‘‘ Believe he may have got introduced to me at some of 
the college wines — quite a different set of fellows, you see. 
Lincolnshire rector ^s son — screwing along on a wretched 
three hundred a year, reading man, went in for professors^ 
lectures and tea, aesthetic culture— tell me if IVe got hold 
of the jargon right — and all that sort of thing. 

‘‘ I understand. Never smuggled a fox-terrier into col- 
lege in a brown paper parcel, never drove tandem through 
plate glass windows in the High Street, nailed up a proc- 
tor^ s door, or painted any of the public statues pea-green. 
In spite of these demerits, says Joyce Dormer coolly, 


18 


A BALLROOM EEPEXTAJfCE. 


he is an exceedingly nice, refined-looking boy, and, friend 
or no friend, he is a fellow-creature and shall be saved. 
Please do not look at me, Mr. Parintyre, with a quick 
impatient movement, turning her head aside, ‘‘but listen 
attentively to what I am saying. Longmore of Corpus 
shall be saved. 

Mr. Farintyre, forbidden the first natural use of his eyes, 
does the next best thing — at how immeasurable a distance 
— open to him. He looks at Aurora Skelton. 

“ Handsomish gurl, that!^^ The remark is made in a 
tentative tone rather than one of certainty. “ ]^ot very 
unlike Eosie Lascelles of the Ambiguity, only worse 
form.""^ 

“ Has Rosie Lascelles of the Ambiguity a false ear? Has 
Eosie Lascelles the fiattest, harshest voice that ever issued 
from a human throat 

“ Eosie pipes like a linnet. Ask anyone who saw her in 
that burlesque on ‘ Frou-frou ^ — Mr. Farintyre looks al- 
most interested — “ if Eosie Lascelles sings in tune!^^ 

“ Then, what right have you to libel her by such a com- 
parison. The young person with shoulder-knots has been 
singing false notes at Longmore of Corpus half the after- 
noon, and again since dinner. How can I tell it? At 
whom should the false notes have been sung, if not at 
him?^’ 

“ At — at some other fellow, perhaps.' ^ 

“ Mr. Farintyre, I did not think you would have at- 
tempted to argue in such a cause. Neither should I have 
suspected you of ill-timed attempts at humor. Far from 
his natural protectors, poor little lad!^^ Longmore of 
Corpus stands just within six feet one in his slippers. “ A 
stranger, in a foreign land — it is your duty, as an English- 
man, to look after him. 

“ Oh, Longmore will get along all right, remarks John 
Farintyre lazily. “ The gurl looks the sort to draw him 
out. Shy of ladies, generally, high ideals, you know — 
looks upon women as superior sorts of beings, and that. 
Not a man I ever had anything to say to. 

Forth darts a mischievous flash from Joyce Dormer^s 
blue eyes. 

“You will have something to say to him now, yes, be- 
fore another two minutes are over. ‘ Will you come into 
my parlor,^ asks the spider of the fly? And the innocent 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAi^CE. 


19 


fly, through your moral support and agency, Mr. Farintyre, 
shall take courage and answer: ^FTo. Go down to the 
man \vho is not your friend, and tell him that I, Joyce 
Dormer, desire to make his acquaintance. Does that not 
please you: Then exercise your fertile brain in hitting 
upon some better excuse. And quickly! The spider draws 
her webs closer — the lady^s voice has sunk to a whisper. 
There is not a moment to lose. 

A wooden staircase descends, chalet-fashion, from the 
long line of balconies on the first fioor to the fiower gardens 
of Hotel Scherer. Down this staircase, a heavy, not too 
willing figure makes its way ere another minute has passed; 
Miss Dormer, her fair head powdered with silver by the 
moon, keeping watch over the development of the plot 
from above. Mr. John Farintyre whistles, somewhat tune- 
lessly: he gazes round at lake, sky and mountain, then, 
hands in ]oockets, lounges up to the pair of sentimentalists 
on the terrace and by a drawled: How are you?^^ renews 
his college acquaintance with the man who is not his 
friend. 

Will the spider, affrighted, run? Will Miss Aurora Skel- 
ton take refuge in the proprieties? 

Miss Aurora Skelton does nothing of the kind. Too art- 
less a child of nature to wait for an introduction, the 
young lady enters, at a moment^s notice, into the freest, 
easiest conversation in the world with the new-comer. She 
seats herself on the ivy-grown parapet that at this point 
divides the terrace from a slope of purple vineyard; then, 
clasping her hands round her knee, in an attitude copied, 
doubtless, from some illustrated love scene in one of 
Diana^s eleven serials, rolls up her black eyes ingenuously 
in the direction of Mr. Farintyre. 

How well she would suit him, in the absence of Eosie 
Lascelles of the Ambiguity 

This, or some analagous thought, crosses Miss Dormer '’s 
mind as she looks clown, unnoticed herself, upon the 
group. 

A moonlit trip to Chillon? W^ell, to be sure!"^ So 
ring the loud exaggerated accents of Aurora Skelton. 

What an aiv fully jolly idea!^^ 

After an acquaintance of one minute and a half,^^ in- 
terpolates Joyce mentally, ‘‘ to credit poor John Farintyre 
wdth ideas 


20 


A BALLROOM REPEXTAXCE. 


I should like ifc aiofidly, any evening you choose, that 
is to say if ma would give me leave, and I know she would. 
Dian and I used often to row about with the gentlemen at 
home. I mean from the Pension Potpourri down at Nice. 
Besides T. S. is coming in a day or two, and he could 
chaperon us. What do you say, Mr. Longmore?^^ 

I say,^^ repeats Joyce, half aloud, and with growing 
determination, ‘Hhat Mr. Longmore shall be rescued. 
Yes, John Farintyre may conduct the awfully jolly expe- 
dition to Chillon, with or without T. S., if he likes. Long- 
more of Corpus shall be rescued. Now, for the means of 
his deliverance. Ah, I have it — StradivariusI^^ 

She flies across the room at the ins]Diration; three or four 
moments later, behold her gliding softly back, her violin 
between her hands, to the window! Standing within its 
embrasure, just where a slant of moonlight falls with ivory 
whiteness on her flgure, Joyce Dormer begins to play. 

The strain she chooses is admirably suited to the scene 
and moment; one of those Nativities in which the old com- 
posers loved to reproduce the tunes performed in early sum- 
mer, by the Pifi^erari, before the street shrines of the Virgin; 
a strain pure, passionless, as her own girlisli face. 

Execution is not her strong point. While she lives. Miss 
Dormer will possibly never compass a grand bravura 
passage, a single striking or bizarre effect. In the true 
Italian quality of making her violin sing, in the broad, 
simple, vocal character of music like this, music in whose 
traditional triple tempo one feels the starlight, Joyce 
is already, at twenty years old, an artist. 

After the nativity, she begins a solo sonata, one of the 
famous Twelve of Corelli. Ere the first andante move- 
ment is half over a hasty step crosses the terrace, a2D2)roaches 
stealthily up the wooden stairs, then sto] 3 S. And a smile 
of victory steals round Joyce ^s lips. She throws herself 
with spirit into the quick trijDjDing movement, the ^sj^ark- 
ling semiquavers and brilliant staccato runs of the second 
part. With mingled fire and delicacy her bow lingers over 
the third movement, a broadly majestic adagio. Few 
amateurs can play a fine adagio, for the reason that here 
the spontaneous gih of melody, Joyce ^s special endowment, 
is the only thing that avails. By the time she reaches the 
last bars" of the final presto, a man^s figure throws its 
shadow suddenly between herself and the moonlight. 


A BALLKOOM REPEIS^TANCE. 


21 


Miss Dormer starts away with a little frightened gesture, 
that, to say the least of it, is bo7i trovato. At the same 
moment the big drawling voice of John Darintyre at once 
dispels every suspicion of romance, and exj)lains the situa- 
tion. 

Mr. Hugh Longmore, college acquaintance, fond of 
Mozart and Beethoven, up in classical music and that sort 
of thing. Mr. Hugh Longmore — Miss Dormer. 

Joyce bends her head, coldly. She stands motionless, 
her eyes downcast, her violin clasjDed between both white 
hands upon her breast. 

And Longmore feels that he has committed an indiscre- 
tion. 

Where is all the easy assurance, where the confidence in 
his own power and the weakness of woman engendered in 
him during his quasi love-affair with Aurora? What is 
there in that cold salutation, in that pair of slender folded 
arms, that they should paralyze him back to the worst shy- 
ness of his school-boy days? 

I am afraid you will call it a great intrusion, but I 
lioped— I mean, I feared — that is to say, Mr. Farintyre 
thought that you might be prevailed upon to play again.'''' 

Fow a few moments Joyce refrains, obdurately, from 
helping him. She stands mute, frozen, while the poor fel- 
low stammers and colors and repeats himself; enjoying liis 
confusion, perhaps, as a cat enjoys the palpating misery 
of a mouse. 

Then she lifts up her gaze of sweet, most steadfast blue, 
to the young man^s face. 

Do you care for the violin truly she cries, moving 
a step toward him in the indistinct light. Do you ask 
me to play, as people ask one to dance a quadrille, from a 
sense of duty, or because my playing would give yourself 
pleasure? Oh, if you are a real music-lover, you shall 
hear just as much of my Stradivarius as you choose — I 
will get my mother to accompany me. Mr. Farintyre, 
run up to the second floor, please. Mammals number is 
fifty-five, the room exactly over this one, and say we 
should like some music. Come in, Mr. Longmore."" 

And by a little wave of the hand, by a softening that 
just falls short of a smile around the lips, she jn’omotes 
young Longmore, on the spot, to the rank of an acquaint- 
ance. 


22 


A BALLKOOM REPENTANCE. 


Mr. Farintyre obeys Joyce’s commands with the prompt- 
ness of one well broken to the duties of fetching and carry- 
ing, and Longmore, a man of conjectural habit of mind, 
finds himself speculating, with a sensation of absurdly 
keen jealousy, as to the probable relations that exist be- 
tween the two. 

Farintyre, though brainless, is rich, the only son of a 
long-established, well-accredited city stock-broker. Farin- 
tyre drove the best turnout of his time in Oxford; rode 
the best horses at the Hey thorp meet; gave the most ex- 
travagant wines and dinners of any man at Merton. 

The Dormers are poor, traveling around the Swiss lakes, 
according to Mrs. Scipio Leonidas, with a jDair of port- 
manteaus, a shabby violin case, and — 

Fa^ fa, sol, fa/’ goes a rapid sweep of Joyce’s bow 
across the strings. 

Even in this moment’s preliminary tuning, Longmore 
receives an impression, never to be effaced, of the girl’s rare 
and finished excellence of posture; the quiet shoulder- joint, 
the firm and fiexible wrist, the exact right-angle of bow; 
delightful graces all of them to one who appreciates with 
ear and eye alike. 

“Flat, again! The air of Lake Geneva most certainly 
disagrees with violins. Stradivarius is as sensitive to every 
change of weather as a barometer. You care something 
for Cremona violins, I hope, Mr. Longmore?” still screw- 
ing up the strings as she speaks. ‘ ‘ Then you will envy me 
mine. It belongs to the master’s finest period and does 
not bear the name of Amati, like the earlier ones. If you 
like to look nearer, you will see the label, ‘ Antonius 
Stradivarius Cremonensis faciebat, 1720.” 

Young Longmore crosses to her side. “ I don’t know 
whether you can read the letters at that distance,” she re- 
marks, warily holding out her Stradivarius for his inspec- 
tion. “ The second morning call Mr. Farintyre made on 
my mother and myself he adroitly managed to let my violin 
fall, and on that occasion I vowed never again to trust it 
into less sure hands than my own. Perhaps jou would like 
to come just a fraction closer?” 

This fraction brings Miss Dormer’s silky hair somewhat 
dangerously near the young Oxonian’s face. She continues 
her lecture on Cremona violins with undisturbed gravity. 

“ 1720, yes, that was in the master’s golden time. 


A BALLEOOM REPEOTAi^'CE. 


23 


Hear/^ tapping the sounding board lightly with her finger, 

how the very pores are full of music! Look, when one 
holds it sideways, at the marvelous curve of the back, at 
the cutting of the F holes. One can believe that violin 
wood was taken only from the sunny side of trees. A kind 
of sunshine seems to linger here, still, under the mellow 
varnish, and as for the weight — ^feel it! I am not afraid, 
'now that I know you two minutes better, of trusting Stradi- 
vari us into your hands. 

Longmore looks over the violin, inch by inch; he detects 
beauties here, asks questions there; shows altogether so 
singularly keen an interest in the history, ancient and 
modern, of this instrument that the lecturer^s blue eyes 
begin to glance gravely at him in the moonlight. 

It was through undeserved good fortune that my 
Stradivarius ever became mine. As she remarks this, 
Miss Dormer moves slightly away from the young man^s 
side. ‘ ^ When I was quite a girl, more than two years 
ago, it was my whim to possess a genuine eighteenth cent- 
ury violin, and — a friend mamma and I had at 'that time 
promised me a Stradivarius, if love or money, chiefiy 
money, could procure one. 

Not Mr. Farintyre?^'’ interrupts Longmore, who is at 
an age still, when men^s lips, wisely or unwisely, blurt out 
the uppermost thought. 

For an. a23preciable instant Joyce hesitates, looking at 
him with direct, discerning glance. 

Mr. Farintyre! We made his acquaintance in the 
course of this last London season, she remarks quietly. 

" ^ Mr. Farintyre must have been at Oxford in his mid- 
career of academical idleness at the time I talk. No, the 
friend who gave me my Cremona, my dear old Stradi- 
varius — 

Taking back the violin abruptly from Longmore^s hand, 
she clasps it with a gesture that in another woman one 
would be tempted to call affectation, to her heart. Precise- 
ly at the same moment the door opens, Mrs. Dormer and 
John Farintyre enter the room, and the history of Stradi- 
varius — not without its importance as regards Hugh Long- 
morels life — remains a fragment. 

This is Mr. Longmore, says Joyce, in her subdued 
voice, with the total absence of that artificial compound 


24 . 


A BALLKOOM EEPEKTANCE. 


usually called manner. Mr. Longmore wishes to hear 
my violin, mamma. Will you accompany me?^^ 

During the past fortnight, Longmore has grown to asso- 
ciate the terrible word Mamma with rouge, wrinkles, 
warranted smiles, a scarlet shawl, pink cap-ribbons, and 
an ever-impending sense of his own capture. He finds 
himself in the presence of a girl, or so Mrs. Dormer looks, 
seen through the dusky gauze of moonlight; a girl with a. 
sleek little uncovered head, with an infantine profile, and 
with a pair of big, blue-gray eyes, over-innocent in their 
expression. 

Over-innocent! That, I believe, is Longmore ^s first, 
perhaps it may prove his final thought on the subject of 
Mrs. Dormer. The expression of those big, blue-gray eyes 
is over-innocent. 

She advances, John Farintyre in the background (did 
ever woman tread so softly as do these two.^) and offers the 
young Oxonian her hand with an amount of cordiality nice- 
ly proportioned to the lightness of his purse and the un- 
doubted advantages of his person. For Mrs. Dormer con- 
spicuously’ possesses the finer shades of manner her 
daughter lacks; makes up, indeed, by ultra-proficiency 
hi the science, for whatever intentional disregard of the 
ritual of Mammon may be shown by Joyce. 

Very pleased, indeed, to make Mr. Longmore^s ac- 
quaintance. This is said in a voice soft as an ^olian harp, 
yet with a certain frigidity of accent that young Longmore 
feels he is intended to feel. A college friend, Mr. Farin- 
tyre has been telling me, so 1 think, Joyce dearest, we 
may already say, a friend of ours. And a lover of music? 
Ah, these are, truly, the charming accidents of travel. 
We are moving slowly south,. Mr. Longmore, to join my 
husband. Mr. Dormer has, for years, been an impassioned 
bric-a-brac hunter, and at the present moment, is literally 
so laden with cinque cento carvings and old china as to be 
anchored at Naples. Darling Joyce, is it not true.^ Your 
poor papa^s brackets and tea-pots have anchored him fast?^^ 

Darling J oyce has crossed to the piano : with her Stradi- 
varius tucked, in true virtuoso style, under her chin, she 
stoops, and after striking Fa sharply, for her pitch, 
goes on with the screwing up of her violin strings. 

‘‘ The piano is neither Erard nor Pleyel,^'’ she observes, 
glancing across toward Longmore. But poverty will 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTAXCE. 25 

make the besfc musician accustomed to sorry companion- 
ship;, will it not, Stradivarius?^^ 

And lightly, with a quick change of position, she rests 
her cheek, or Longmore suspects her lips, upon the time- 
blackened sounding-board of her violin. 

At the obnoxious word ‘‘ poverty, John Farintyre, who 
has sunk resignedly down upon the sofa, reddens to the 
roots of his hair. 

‘‘ A^oifl' beloved Stradivarius will have as good compan- 
ionship as you choose before long,^^ he observes, in a tone 
half gallantry, half growl. 

I am afraid not,"'^ cries Joyce. And for the first time 
Longmore sees her smile. Miss Dormer has the rare charm 
of laughing scarcely at all, and of smiling only when she is 
really amused. As soon as we are settled in our Nice 
lodgings for the winter, mamma will hire a piano from 
Eberius. The good old Jew has the very worst instruments 
in the world, and I fancy gives us the worst of all he pos- 
sesses, probably because our circumstances compel us to 
bargain about price. 

‘‘ Price! As if the price of a thing could ever- matter. 
John Farintyre remarks this with the air of a SardanaiDalus. 

‘ ‘ It matters a good deal when you are hiring a 23iano in a 
Eiviera watering-place,^^ is Miss Dormer^s calm answer. 
‘^It matters infinitely when you have at once an ear for 
music and a limited purse. ^ A soul by nature pitched 
too high ^ — is the quotation correct, Mr. Longmore? — ‘ by 
fortune brought too low. ^ 

must accompany you so well as to make everybody 
forget the quality of our piano,^^ cries Mrs. Dormer, in her 
conciliatory smooth voice. My love — in that short, 
sweet appellation there lurks a tone that Longmore, jDrone 
to judge by trifles, recognizes as a distant reprimand — 
what kind of music, I wonder, would our audience like 
best?^^ 

‘‘We will play, Mr. Longmore, a selection of airs from 
‘ Carmen ^ first, answers the girl briskly. “ ^ Carmen,^ 
I must tell you, Mr. Longmore, brings back my youth, my 
first season, more than any other opera. Oh/ it is very 
easy for you to look disdainful, Mr. Farintyre. I hold that 
old things are best, and that it is wholesome to be reminded 
every now and then of dates.'’^ 

When the mother and daughter have taken their jJaces, 


26 


A BALLROOM REPE]SrTANCE. 


Longmore^s glance wanders from the two fair heads to the 
accessories by which they are surrounded. The room is but 
the ordinary private salon of Swiss hotels: a room bare of 
furniture, destitute of adornment. But Mrs. and Miss 
Dormer, after inhabiting it a day, seem to have filled every 
nook and corner with the delicate charm of their own pres- 
ence. Music lies on the piano, a bunch of wild-flowers and 
a little gray glove are beside the case of Joyce^s violin on a • 
side-table; two or three leather-bound books, within the 
embrasure of the window, a morsel of half -finished tapes- 
try, a work-basket — and the picture is complete. 

Mrs. Skelton and her daughters devastated Europe en- 
cumbered by no inconsiderable stock of stage properties. 

‘‘ Impossible to live,'’^ says the veteran, without one^s 
ongtourage! My girls, you see, have such delightful re- 
cherche tastes, Di in particular. Diana positively can not 
exist without elegance. And so, in each fresh room the 
Miss Skeltons inhabit, are scattered around carvings, statu- 
ettes, photographs, engravings; things of artistic value, it 
may be, in themselves, and yet that become simply so many 
unsuggestive details of vulgar upholstery when taken with 
their context — the Miss Skeltons. 

Mrs. Scipio Leonidas travels around with luggage suf- 
ficient for a caravansary; with morning, afternoon, dinner, 
and ball-dresses; with diamonds; with a Russian Samovar, 
an English medicine-chest, a pug-dog, an abigail, and scrofu- 
lous French novels ad liHhim, My habits of life are 
that luxurious,^ ^ the lady has been heard, to confess, ‘‘ that 
I can not stop a night on the road without opening at least 
three of my overland cases. And her drawing-room (she 
invariably takes the costliest one of every hotel at which she 
stays) is — the faithful reflex of Mrs. Colonel Scipio Leoni- 
das P. Briggs. 

The Dormers^ dress is plain, almost to eccentricity. Thej . 
have no lady^s-maid; they have no statuettes; no ongtour- 
age! Yet it comes to pass that the mere atmosphere they 
inhabit, the unadorned evidences of their every-day occupa- 
tions affect Hugh Longmore like some flower^s unexpected 
fragrance. 

As he listens to their music, as he watches the two soft 
profiles in the moonlight, as he yields himself up, without a 
struggle, to the electric, perilous influences of the moment. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


2 ' 


the yomig undergraduate is sensible of growing and distinct- 
ly inimical feelings toward Mr. John Farintyre. 

That gentleman, in an attitude of more than ease on a 
sofa, contrives to keep his eyes open through the hammer- 
ing rhythm of the opeiVs introductory theme; he nods vig- 
orously through the bull-fighter Escamillo^’s song, and is 
comfortably asleep by the time Joyce ""s bow, with suave and 
sonorous power, is rendering the striking phrase in D 
minor, the pathetic leading motive of the work. When a 
final fortissimo at length betokens that Jose has plunged his 
dagger into Garments heart, Mr. Farintyre raises himself 
drowsily about a couple of inches, drawls “ Thanks, very- 
pretty,^^ between two yawns, and then remarks that it is 
about time to light up the gas. 

Light up the gas, keep out the moonlight,^ ^ cries 
Joyce, close the piano and the windows, and let us settle 
down to a game of Napoleon or ecarte. Bo not defend 
yourself, Mr. Farintyre, I know that is whafc you mean. 
Poor Mr. Farintyre detests music, she adds, turning with 
an explanatory air to Longmore, and an evil fate seems 
to have decreed that he shall, for awhile, be our traveling 
companion. The usual story of the square peg in the I’ound 
hole. Instead of lighting the gas we will decide on our 
next piece. Shall we play a duet of old Viotti^s, for a 
contrast?^ ^ 

We ought to consult the opinion of our hearers, says 
Mrs. Dormer, turning her head and giving Longmore the 
full benefit of her large eyes. Ninety-nine men out of a 
hundred would call them handsomer eyes than her daugh- 
ter'^s; they are, indeed, Joyce^s, but thawed; to the hun- 
dredth man, the charm might be in the ice. Our taste, 
Mr. Longmore, is, I am afraid, severely old-fashioned. 
With the exception of this somewhat tinsel piece of work, 
‘ Carmen,^ there is scarcely one piece of popular music that 
Joyce can be prevailed upon to play.^^ 

Carmen, mia Carmen, adorata,^-' sings Miss Dormer, 
in a low voice. “ Don’t say anything against poor Bizet or 
his opera to-night, mother.” 

I repeat only what the best critics have written, my 
love. The Wagnerish notion of introducing the Leitmotiv 
— those two singular bars, with their superfluous second, at 
every critical moment, is striking, but scarcely more than a 
trick. Most certainly it is not original. Is not the entire 


28 


A BALLROOM REPEJiTTAl^CE. 


opera of ‘ Lohengrin ^ based upon the change of the A ma- 
jor chord to that of F sharp minor 

shall love Carmen forever and ever/^ says Joyce 
Dormer with decision. So I suppose it is certain that my 
taste inclines toward tinsel. Mr. Longmore^ what shall he 
our next performance? We look to you for a decision. 

^ ^ I should like whatever you are kind enough to play for 
me/’ sa>js Longmore, crossing to the instrument. A duet 
of Viotti^’s/^ he adds, making a bold, but hazard shot, 
most of all.'" ^ 

Ah, you know him, you care for Viotti^s simple, grand 
old music, cries Joyce, raising her bow, eagerly. 

I know that you mentioned his name. Miss Dormer. 
Nothing more.^^ 

Viotti should feel flattered! Under circumstances like 
these, mamma, you are the best judge of what is suited to 
us all — Mr. Longmore, ourselves, and — and Mr. Parintyre. 
A"ou have an instinct for majorities, you know — which flat- 
terer of our acquaintance told us that? and I have not. 

“ If I am to decide,'^ says the elder lady, and as it is 
too dark for us to see a note, I propose that we kee23 to 
something unambitious: ^ From North to South,^ say; the 
jDiece Mr. Farintyre likes. ^ 

And Mrs. Dormer chooses well. The piece Mr. Farin- 
tyre likes is a popular, simply set collection of the world ^s 
national anthems. The crustiest tune-liater could scarcely 
demur at patriot hymns, rendered with spirit, in an ex- 
quisite hour of mingled dusk and moonlight, by dilettante 
fingers fair as these! 

John Farintyre, waking up, applauds appreciatively. Is 
not God save the Queen one of the two melodies he 
can distinguish negatively from all others, brought into the 
performance? 

Brava, brava!^^ he cries, with a resounding clap of his 
big hands. I call that good music. None of your blessed 
sonata and cantatas, your Corelly's and Viotty^s, but some- 
thing a man can understand. Music with a jingle in it!^^ 
Joyce turns quickly round — a little pivot-like courtesy 
enabling Longmore to see that her foot is as slender as her 
hand. She gives Farintyre a mocking glance of her blue 
eyes. 

After such a graceful comjfliment, Mr. Farintyre, you 
shall be rewarded by our shutting uj) our instruments. Not 


A r.ALLROOM KEPEKTANCE. 


29 


another note of Corelly’s or Viotty^s shall you hear to- 
night. Won Id it be too great an exertion, do you think, 
for you to look about for my violin-case?^^ 

Is her manner one of entreaty, command, indifference? 
Longmore, fond of puzzling over rigidly unanswerable 
questions, puts this one to himself. The lad comes fresh 
from the schools and all that the schools can teach; has 
Grote and Mommsen at his fingers^ ends; brims over with 
Plato, sawn up into quantities by Aristotle, and is not 
unversed in the latest German philsophies. He is also, by 
temperament, an analyst, given to geometrical subtleties, 
forever asking the wherefore of abstract passion and of pos- 
sible motive. 

In common every-day human concerns, especially such 
concerns as happen to be complicated by the working of a 
girTs heart, Hugh Longmore, at two-and-twenty, is igno- 
rant as a child. 

The night is a great deal too fine to be wasted withii^ 
doors, observes Joyce, when she has carefully locked up 
the case of her Stradivari us. What do you say to a moon- 
lit stroll, mother? Ho you remember the little plateau high 
among the hills to which you and I scrambled our way two 
autumns ago? Why not all adjourn there now?^^ 

‘‘ The 23lateau above ‘the chestnut woods — with the won- 
derful j)anorama of Chillon and the upper lake. Charm- 
ing— 

But here an ominous sound causes Mrs. Dormer to stop 
short. She glances, interrogatively, at the face of Joyce ^s 
suitor. 

He is yawning, Avithout even the decent shame that 
prompts us to suppress our yawns. Lakes and mountains 
of a morning, Corellys and Viottys of an evening, are, by 
no means, poor Mr. Farintyre^s ideal of enjoyment; no, 
not with the added delight of a moonlit stroll, the intellect- 
ual treat of hearing Jo 3 ^ce discuss books and music with the 
man who is not his friend. 

And, reading aright the expression of her intended son- 
in-law, Mrs. Dormer^s own taste for chestnut woods and 
Avonderful panoramas cools on the instant. 

I think I shall let you young people find your Avay to 
the ]3lateau Avdthout me,^^ she remarks, sinking into an arm- 
chair, and passing her Avhite fingers over a broAv fair and 
unfurroAA^ed as a chikPs. I have just a suspicion of head- 


30 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


ache, and am more in a humor for quiet and rest than for 
scaling romantic hill-sides. 

“ Not in a humor for eoarte, of course?’^ suggests Fariii- 
tyre, getting up with an effort from the sofa, then crossing 
over toward the bell. 

The very thing to do me good, Mr. Farint3Te. It is 
only fair you should wipe off that heavy score of gloves you 
lost to me at Grindelwald. Eing, yleasel^" Mrs. Dormer is 
a little woman made up of pleading emphasis, of soft cooing 
italics, of the constant indirect flattery that makes itself felt 
through tones, rather than words. We will begin our 
fight at once. Gas, we will have none of — only a couple 
of wax-candles to enable us to see the moonlight the better. 
Joyce, my dear, be advised. We have had enough fatigue 
for to-day. 

Miss Dormer moves to the window; she looks out with 
longing eyes across the lake, clearly purple as the sky above, 
the fairy-like lights from half a score of boats dotting its 
surface, and with a glorious silver path shining straight 
away toward the mist-girt valley of the Ehone. 

Star-gazing versus ecarte,^^ she remarks, as a wave of 
dool and delicate night air flows in across her face. If it 
were not for braving the dragons — I mean for running the 
gantlet of the salon windows — I should be temjffed to 
make my way through the chestnut avenue toward Glion. 
I want to see how the first snows look by moonlight on the 
Col de Jaman.""^ 

The dragons will muster in greater force than usual,^^ 
says Longmore, who has followed her. Monsieur Scherer 
has promised us a ball to-night, and an extra row of dow- 
agers will be sure to line the salon windows. If you will 
accept my escort. Miss Dormer, I think you might perhaps 
get past them alive. 

But is your time at your own disposal?^’ asks Joyce, 
rather maliciously. ‘‘Are you not wanted for the ball? 
Are you positive your friends will not get up some moonlit 
expedition later on in the evening, to the castle of Chillon?''^ 

“ Oh, Chillon is for another occasion,'’^ cries out John 
Farintyre. “ I got let in for Chillon by moonlight before I 
knew what I was about. Decidedly approachable, that 
friend of yours, Longmore, and not half bad-looking for the 
sort of style. By the way, wiiat is her name? The young 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 31 

woman with ribbons, you know, that you were spooning on, 
down by the wall, there 

Spooning!^ ^ repeats Hugh Longmore, his bronzed face 
reddening like a girPs. 

Or she on you; much the same thing, isn't it? Afraid 
I came up at a critical moment, from the embarrassed look 
of both parties." 

The young lady was Miss Aurora Skelton, a recent ac- 
quaintance, a — a daughter of Prebendary Skelton," says 
Longmore, a certain look in Joyce's blue eyes provoking 
him to stand on his dignity. Mrs. Skelton is obliged to 
live most 'of the year out of England, for climate's sake. I 
believe they generally spend their winters in the south!" 

Skelton, surely that name ought to be familiar to me," 
Mrs. Dormer remarks, placidly. ‘‘Skelton. Yes, I am 
convinced we must have met Mr. Longmore's friends often 
— on the Promenade des Anglais, at Nice (if you insist on 
going out, child, you must really wrap up). There was a 
mother." Singular what keen-edged meaning a fiute-like 
voice can throw into so simple a statement of facts. “ And 
there were daughters." 

“ Daughters, very decidedly," says Mr. Farintyre grow- 
ing jocular. “ The moment I saw your friend, Longmore, 
she reminded me of Eosie Lascelles of the Ambiguity — 
Eosie Lascelles, minus the form, and minus the talent. If 
an actress does go in for attitude," here Mr. Earin tyre's 
tone becomes one of conviction, “ she does it well. '' 

At this second mention of Eosie Lascelles of the Ambig- 
uity, Joyce Dormer steps out on the balcony. She says 
something in a low tone to Longmore who is at her side, 
then makes the usual feminine pretense at “ wrapping up " 
by knotting a small cambric handkerchief about her throat. 

“ Joyce, my love, why should you not play us a solo," 
cries Mrs. Dormer, glancing round from the table where 
John Farintyre is organizing candles and cards. “ One of 
your own compositions, darling, or, better still, an impro- 
visation. Depend upon it, Mr. Longmore would like to 
hear you improvise. ' ' 

“ Mr. Longmore shall be gratified on some future day, 
mother. We are going out now to have a look at the first 
snows on the Jaman. Perhaps I may prevail on Mr. Long- 
more to give me a lesson in astronomy." 


32 


A BALLROOM REPEXTAXCE. 


Delightful night for a stroll/^ observes John Farintyre^ 
with a tolerable show of magnanimity. 

In the gardens of the hotel, yes.'’^ And Mrs. Dormer 
takes one of her quick looks at the young man^s face. 
‘‘ But not beyond. Crime is positively becoming of every- 
day occurrence in Switzerland. I see in the ' Lausanne 
Courier^ that the diligence was stopped last Thursday, 
near Ohambery. A Sister of Mercy was robbed of her purse 
and an elderly Swiss banker — 

Mother,'’^ interrupted Joyce, a well-defined shade of 
impatience in her tone, is this Ohambery? Am la Sister 
of Mercy, or a diligence? Is Mr. Longmore an elderly Swiss 
banker? Play out your match at ecarte — amuse yourselves 
well — and if I am not back by midnight, let the lights be 
extinguished and the hotel shut up. All that remains of 
me will be found somewhere between this and the summit 
of the Col de Jaman to-morrow. 


CHAPTEE III. 

A MOOi^LIT SOXATA. 

The salon windows are innocent of dragon or dowager; 
the salon, itself, newly beeswaxed and garnished for danc- 
ing is, as yet, empty. 

Joyce Dormer and Longmore pass out through the silent 
dew-freshened gardens to the high-road, white, as though 
paved with marble, in the moonlight; they turn away by a 
narrow footpath in the direction of Glion, and after a quar- 
ter of an hour^s steep ascent find themselves on the open 
mountain ""s side. Straight before their sight stands black, - 
pine-covered Cubli. To the extreme right are the seven 
peaks of the Dent du Midi; a world of purple vineyard lies 
at their feet. Crystal clear has grown the atmosphere. The 
big, near stars flash and. palpitate in many-coloied fires of 
emerald and ruby. The sharp, needle-like Jaman, the lofty 
Nez, are printed in dense relief against a background of 
luminous sky. 

It seems to Longmore in this ampler ether, in this pale 
Elysium light, as though he and Miss Dormer had been 
acquainted for years. 

‘‘ Star-gazing on the whole is better than ecarte,'’^ the 
girl remarks, seating herself with the don-gargon air of 


A BALLBOOM KBPEISTTAlSrcrE. 


33 


brusqueness that she carries off with such grace, upon a 
projecting point of bowlder among the heath. ‘‘ And star- 
gazing might be improved by one^s understanding a little 
about the stars. Years ago I recollect gaining an astrono- 
my prize in some class mamma made me attend in Paris, 
and at the present hour I do not know a planet from a star 
of the first magnitude when I see them together. Of 
course you have the heavens at your finger-ends. What 
boys learn is so ground into them at school that, in spite of 
their best endeavors, they can not lose it all again as girls 
do.^^ 

The Girton girls, for instance, suggests Longmore. 

^0 Winchester school-boy in my day knew more about 
stars than that they existed. 

‘^But you could tell their places? You must have 
learned something in that grand observatory at Oxford. 
You know, at least, where that came from?^ ^ 

As she speaks the great vault has suddenly whitened with 
the hundred thousand miles glissade of some shooting 
meteor. 

I have a notion that I could find the Great Bear and 
Cassiopea,^^ says Hugh Longmore. I might even dis- 
cover Arcturus, perhaps, on a pinch. 

Point them out to me. If you will kneel down on the 
heather, here, our eyes will be on the same level. It 
would never do to tell my mother and Mr. Farintyre that, 
although they may have enjoyed their ecarte, our as- 
tronomy lesson came to notliing. We will begin with 
Arcturus.’’^ 

Arcturus, says the young Oxonian, taking his place 
somewhat shyly at Miss Dormer ^s side, is the large very 
yellow star just in front of us.^^ 

You must be more explicit, Mr. Longmore. I see a 
dozen large very yellow stars just in front of us. 

Arcturus is immediately above the tallest of those three 
large trees. You are looking quite in a wrong direction. 
Miss Dormer — follow the direction of my finger. 

Joyce inclines her head, in grave obedience, until it is 
within a few inches of Longmore^s. Her eyes follow the 
direction toward which he points. 

And has Arcturus a proper motion she asks, much 
as though she were questioning a professor of sixty with a 
watchful mamma and governess in chaperonage. You 
2 


34 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTAKCE. 


see how thoroughly I have forgotten everything. Can 
Arcturns be the old Bootis, going fifty-four miles a second, 
that we used to learn about in Paris?^^ 

The lesson on astronomy is a long and a serious one. 
Seriousness characterizes Joyce Dormer ^s smallest move- 
ments, heightens what I should call the moral picturesque- 
ness of her character. Sweet though her face be, it is un- 
smiling; her voice is below the concert pitch of artificial 
society-talk. Bright, sympathetic, full of unaffected inter- 
est in life, it requires an effort to imagine this girl of twenty 
getting out of breath about anything. Pre-eminently does 
she inspire you with a sense of rest, subtlest of charms, at 
all times, trebly subtle to a man who for a fortnight has 
suffered under the galvanic gushes, the overstrained noisy 
enthusiasm, equally false and equally little, of an Aurora 
Skelton! 

When young Longmore^s last word on the subject of 
stars is spoken, Miss Dormer consults her watch. 

‘‘ What! must you return he asks. Are you afraid 
that Mrs. Dormer is nervous still over her recollections of 
elderly Swiss bankers and the Chambery diligence 

Not the very least in the world. My mother and I 
flatter ourselves we do not possess a nerve between us. As 
long as mamma can make another person happy she is con- 
tented. Of course she makes Mr. Parintyre supremely 
happy by playing ecarte.^^ 

‘‘ Oh, of course,^ ^ assents Longmore. 

And a sudden uncertainty comes over him as to whether 
John Parintyre be most in love with the mother or with the 
daughter. 

He is not, as a rule, amusable, I should say,'^ observes 
Miss Dormer casually. 

‘‘ Who — Parintyre? • Well, really I knew little of his 
tastes at Oxford. My father is the rector of a poor Lincoln- 
shire parish. Miss Dormer, and the keeping of college terms, 
for me, meant money. Parintyre^s father is a millionaire. 
You can imagine that our paths lay wide of each other. A 
man reading eight hours a day, and finding all the pleasure 
he can afford in a walk along the high-road or a quiet pull 
on the river, is not likely to come across — 

‘‘ The undergraduate who is an adept at Loo, Van and 
Nap (these are Mr. Parintyre^ s own recollections of the 
Alma Mater), and whose only reading is of ^ BelPs Life ^ 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAlSrCE. 


35 


and the ‘ Sporting Times. ^ Precisely. It is because Mr. 
Farintyre is fond of cards and not fond of books that I 
should call him unamusable.^^ 

After this, there is a moment^s silence, then: You, of 
course, should know best?^^ suggests Longmore, a note of 
interrogation in his voice. 

I have had fair opportunities for judging during the 
last three weeks. Out of the twenty-one days we have 
spent in Switzerland, we have had eleven of rain — Mr. 
Farintyre is to a certain extent traveling with us; I mean, 
he stops when we stop, he sees what we see — and these 
eleven days have enlightened us all as to our several 
resources. I, personally, am never dull; I have Stradi- 
varius. My mother is the most occupied little creature liv- 
ing, a great reader, a good worker, an indefatigable cor- 
respondent, But Mr. F'arintyre! — If mamma were not so 
clever .and so patient at card-pla3ring, I think the poor fel- 
low would have been bored into 'committing suicide. 

Bored when he was — I mean,^^ says Longmore, hap- 
pily stopping short on the brink of a compliment, when 
he could have as much good music as he liked. 

De gustihus non est disputandum,^^ says Miss Dormer, 
pronouncing her Latin very prettily. You, perhaps, Mr. 
Longmore, might not be bored if you were to travel with 
mamma and me.^^ 

The point-blank coolness with which she advances the 
surmise renders a flattering answer impossible. 

But Mr. Farintyre does not know one note from 
another; boasts, indeed, that he can not distinguish between 
Mozart and ^ Madame Angot. "" Sometimes I think Mr. 
Farintyre is to be envied. Wlien one remembers all the 
bad music there is in the world, the possession of an over- 
fine ear, or even of a cultivated taste would seem a doubt- 
ful benefit. 

The subject of bad music brings them down with induc- 
tive celerity, with few fine intermediate shades, to the recol- 
lection of Aurora Skelton. 

That young lady deliberately slaughtered the ^ Ave 
Maria ^ of Schubert in your presence this evening, and you 
abetted her. She sung three modern English songs, each 
more out of tune than the last. You listened. You ap- 
plauded. Why^^ 


36 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


Because — because I had no choice of doing otherwise/^ 
is Longmore^s answer. 

Mr. Longmore, that defense is too lame. Do you not 
know, as a physical fact, the highly destructive effect false 
notes have on the nerve-centers?^^ 

I am afraid I know only too well, experimentally. 

But have you mastered the theory? ‘ Whenever two 
series of aerial undulations interfere with one another ^ — 
my first German music teacher made me learn this by heart 
— ‘ the effect upon the auditory nerves is that special form 
of discomfort cognized as a dissonance.'^ Your friend^s 
singing throughout is ^ that special form of discomfort cog- 
nized as a dissonance. Yet you not only listen; you en- 
courage her. Will you tell me why?^'’ 

If Longmore were discussing the question with a man, 
discussing it, say, in the truthful atmosphere engendered 
by midnight tobacco smoke and a bachelor fireside, he 
would possibly make mention of poor Aurora^s personal 
charms, of the dimple in the cheek, of the bold black eyes 
that consciously flatter every person of the opposite sex who 
looks into them. 

On this lonely mountain-side, with Joyce Dormer’s quiet 
gaze encountering his own, he replies, stammering, that he 
supposes bad music, if one has a musical taste, is better 
than none, in out-of-the-way places. That is to say, it is 
an atrocious thing to hurt people^s feelings, and Miss Au- 
rora Skelton was so good-natured as to offer to sing for him 
to-day, and — 

And Mr. Longmore was content to play the part of 
Tartuffe,^^ cries Joyce, rising to her feet. Don’t attempt 
to vindicate yourself, sir. Bad music is infinitely worse 
than none, and you or I, knowing it to be bad, ought to 
stamp it out whenever we have a chance. Do you hear the 
cry of that far-off grasshopper?^'’ she goes on. Those 
two cracked monotonous thirds seem to me more pathetic, 
fuller of a real impassioned song than half the ‘ Eemem- 
brances ^ and ^ Alones,^ with their pretentious far-fetched 
accompaniments, that fill the Eegent Street shop- windows. 

But if ^ Eemembrances ^ and ^ Alones ^ give pleasure 
to the majority,'’'’ says Longmore, ‘‘ to the millions of 
men and women, mostly what Mr. Carlyle calls them, for 
whom such things are written?’^ 

^ ‘ The poorest song may at least be sung in tune. Mi% 


A BALLKOOM KEPENTAKCE. 


37 


Longmore^ if you are so warm in your defense of false 
notes I shall begin to think bad things of you. It may be 
wise to change the subject. Would yonder goat-track lead 
us down to Clarens, do you suppose, or over the brow of 
the cliff. ^ Then, by all means, let us take it. You may 
be pioneer. As she speaks. Miss Dormer surrenders her 
hand to the lad^s keeping. But we will meet our fate in 
company. If we could get just sufficiently far into danger 
to make one^s heart beat quicker 

But no danger of a physical kind awaits them. The 
goat-track leads, not across the brow of the cliff, but to a 
tiny knoll of greenest velvet, hemmed in by mountain 
larches, carpeted with upland flowers, a spot where it would 
scarce surprise you to come upon Caliban and Ariel, dis- 
coursing in the moonlight, or to see Cobweb and Moth and 
Peas-Blossom playing hide-and-seek among the grass. 

A look of genuine, childish pleasure brightens over Joyce 
Dormer’s expressive face. 

This is worth eleven days of rain! Worth all the dis- 
mal evenings we have spent since we came to Switzer- 
land. ‘ An clair de la lime, ’ ” Under her breath she runs 
through a bar or two of Lull’s delicious melody. I have 
to thank you, Mr. Longmore, for lighting on anything so 
charming. We must bring my mother here the first fine 
afternoon, and Mr. Farintyre, and a kettle, and drink our 
five-o’clock-tea al fresco A ^ 

Five o’clock tea, with music,” suggests Longmore. 

It is a promise that I shall hear you play something of 
your own composition, and the violin, like the voice, needs 
no accompaniment out-of-doors. Would you trust me, for 
once. Miss Dormer, to be the bearer of Stradivarius?” 

Not on the occasion of the tea-party,” answers the 
girl. Hugh Longmore, reading between the lines, inter- 
prets her tone to mean not in the society of Mr. Farintyre ! 
‘^If time were at my own disposal — or rather, if I had 
genius, not facility, it would be good, indeed, to bring 
Stradivarius to a wild place like this — to seek one’s ideas, 
not from the printed score of others, but from Nature 
direct. Unfortunately, we amateurs are echoes of echoes. 
I can embroider a little with my bow, as you shall hear, 
any day you choose; but it must be on some real musician’s 
motive. My improvisations, as mamma good-naturedly 
calls them, are pale copies of the Italian pastorals. I just 


38 


A BALLROOM REPEjS^TAMCE. 


approach the threshold of originality, and yet stand outside 
in the cold forever. 

Speaking thus. Miss Dormer moves a few yards onward, 
and then stops short. Around, behind her, is the never- 
to-be-forgotten little glade — ^the glade with its quiet larches, 
its fresh, wet grass, with Arcturus shining overhead. Im- 
mediately in front, a footpath leads down to the prosaic 
region of white- walled vineyards and gardens, to the Hotel 
Scherer, to a pair' of prosaic card-players losing gloves to 
each other at 6carte. 

Joyce pauses for a second or two, her gaze turned sky- 
ward, her bare head surrounded by an aureole like a 
saint^s. The wind, keen off the mountains, blows back the 
soft hair from her forehead. 

Did you ever remark, Mr. Longmore, that flowers have 
their moonlight smell? It surrounds us at this moment. 
’Well, in the hottest London concert-room that peculiar 
cold sweetness comes back to me always when I hear Bee- 
thoven^ s ^ Moonlight Sonata. 

The sonata dedicated to the Countess Guicciardi,^^ says 
Longmore, looking hard at his companion's clear face, her 
buoyant airy figure. The coquette who, after being 
loved by Beethoven, married a composer of ballet music. 
No, Miss Dormer, I know nothing about the effects of 
moonlight on vegetation. Flowers, with one or two excep- 
tions, give out their strongest scent in the caloric rays of 
the sun. As facts prove, however, that the electric light 
is equally efficacious in producing chlorophy in leaves, it 
may be assured — 

Please don^t be scientific breaks in Joyce, implor- 
ingly. One may like a little exact science as regards the 
stars, but about flowers — No. Facts. Oh, if you are so 
skeptical as to require them, I will convince you instantly. 

She hesitates, looking around her; then stoops above a 
mound overgrowing with wild thyme. She bruises a mass 
of the dewy odorous blossoms between her fingers. 

Flowers must have the caloric rays of the sun upon 
them, you tell me, in order to smell sweet. Then what, 
pray, do you say to this?^^ 

And, abruptly, two little perfumed hands, white, cold as 
the moon^s light itself, are held up across the young 
Oxonian^ s face. 

Will the scent of wild thyme ever fail to recall this mo- 


A BALLROOM REPEMTAKC®. 


39 


mentis intoxication to Hugh Longmore? Would the cyni- 
cism of every man of the world living convince him that 
Joyce Dormer was not acting from a pure and girlish im- 
pulse? 


CHAPTER IV. 

ASKIl^^G FOR TRUMPS. 

Gaslight streams forth, murdering the moonbeams, 
through every open window of M. Scherer^s state salon. 
Mrs. Skelton, in plumes and paint, thumps a waltz tune 
upon a piano, tinkling, worn-out, sharp of tongue as her- 
self. The three Miss Skeltons fly around in the arms of 
three thick - booted, tweed- jacketed tourists, newly kid- 
napped, poor fellows, on their descent, foot-sore and blis- 
tered, from the mountains, and who will depart, affrighted, 
by the earliest train for Lausanne to-morrow! Twice, 
regularly, each week is a like batch of Innocents 
Abroad mercilessly executed, to pianoforte accompani- 
ment by Miss Aurora Skelton and her elder sisters. 

Mrs. Dormer and John Farintyre, their match at ecarte 
ended, watch the ball-room from the grass terrace outside; 
Mrs. Dormer ^s neutral-tinted dress, her soft, fair face, her 
composed step, affording a grateful contrast to the be-rib- 
boned, overheated votaries of noise and glare and rapid 
movement within. 

‘‘We say, every day, that the world is a small place, Mr. 
Farintyre. It seems to me that the world affords human 
beings a pretty wide scope for the exercise of their bad taste. 
These dear creatures, with their piano, and their smartness, 
and their gas, think they are enjoying the mountains, are 
enjoying them, doubtless, adds Mrs. Dormer liberally, 
“ after a fashion. 

“ Well, yes, there is no accounting for taste, John Far- 
intyre assents, with a somewhat surly glance in the direc- 
tion of Ghon. “ Some old-fashioned people, you see, 
might call this a fitter hour of the night for dancing than 
for making mountain excursions. 

“ Are you thinking of Joyce? Oh, there is not the small- 
est occasion for fear,^^ returns Mrs. Dormer, with admirable 
maternal philosophy. “ Some weak-nerved mothers are in 
a constant fever about their children. I have never been 


40 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


in a fever about Joyce. It was not my system. From the 
time Joyce was in short coats I have trained her to take 
care of herself. And she has done so. I positively do not 
remember her meeting with a bruise or a scratch like other 
cliildren. 

Mr. Farintyre^s wits do not seem to furnish him with an 
adequate rejoinder. He glances stilh and with undimin- 
ished surliness, in the direction of Glion. 

I must confess it would be ‘as wise to start on these lit- 
tle expeditions by daylight. But in Joyce^s case one must 
always make allowance, must one not, for artistic pro- 
clivities?^^ 

Artistic proclivities! A very convenient phrase says 
Mr. John Farintyre. 

Ho change of feature or of voice betrays that the ill- 
humor of this speech strikes home to Mrs. Dormer. 

Joyce is an artist to her hearths core, although, happily 
for herself, dear child, she is destined to lead the life of an 
ordinary woman. Joyce seeks inspiration for her music 
in situations where other girls of her age — 

Would be content, no doubt, to seek a flirtation, in- 
terrupts Farintyre. It will be seen that this young gen tie- 
man ^s manners have been formed among such disciples of 
progress as hold Lord Chesterfield obsolete. ‘‘ Men, un- 
fortunately, do not draw these fine distinctions. Miss Dor- 
mer^s numerous admirers judge of her when she is in the 
inspiration-seeking mood, as they would judge of girls who 
are not geniuses, and get their vanity flattered accordingly! 
How this young prig, Longmore — 

Longmore?^^ exclaims Mrs. Dormer, resting her taper 
fingers upon the arm of her son-in-law presumptive. 

And who is Longmore? — Ah, of course, after a me- 
mentos pretty hesitation, the young Oxonian you intro- 
duced to us this evening — Longmore of Longford, did you 
say? A nice, refined fellow he seems — like all prigs. 

In her inmost soul is Mrs. Dormer guilty of a sarcasm? 
‘^Mr. Longford, one may feel sure, knows the district 
well. This makes Joyce^s safety doubly certain. 

Her safety? 00 repeats John Farintyre between his 
teeth. 

But Mrs. Dormer does not, or will not, detect the ill- 
humor of the ejaculation. 

If your friend plays whist we might organize a rubber 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKOE. 


41 


occasionally. It is time Joyce stored up provision for her 
old age by learning to like the game. And talking of 
whist reminds me, Mr. Farintyre, you said something to- 
day at lunch that I did not clearly follow.'’^ Mrs. Dormer 
unable to follow a remark of Farintyre^sl Some story, 
was it, showing that you may not ask for trumps after you 
have already had the lead and refrained from playing 
one?^^ 

She draws him away, bearing her weight on his solid arm, 
looking up, her fine eyes full of interest to his face. When 
the whist-table story has been set forth \vifch such dramatic 
liveliness as poor John Farintyre possesses: I held knave 
of clubs, you understand, fourth round. Queen put on 
second hand; diamonds led through me, and then I called 
for trumps, and — and, begad, my partner returned the 
diamond and lost the trick — when that incomprehensible 
story, I say, has been stumbled through, criticised, retold, 
she glides cautiously on’ to matters connected with the 
hunting-field — matters about which Mr. Farintyre, like 
many another yomig city Croesus, knows little, and loves 
to talk much. 

^^We women are so engrossed with small aims — our 
charities, calling-cards, art, music, and the last shape of 
bonnet with which we are threatened for the winter — that 
we scarcely know more than the outside names of men^s 
pursuits. You were giving us an absurd account the other 
day of how some Frenchman headed the fox in the Pytchley 
hunt, and I believe Joyce and I both laughed without 
knowing why. Now tell me, exactly and truly, what 
‘ heading the fox ^ means. 

The explanation takes time. *Tohn Farintyre does not 
readily warm to the expressing of ideas, even his own, even 
when the ideas relate to the three or four subjects which 
awaken in him genuine interest. But Mrs. Dormer, with 
the acuteness of a Q. C., cross questions here, throws out a 
note of admiration there, from the hunting-field gets him 
to Ascot, from Ascot to Norfolk, from Norfolk to Hurling- 
ham. 

When the ingenuous youth is once brought to Hurling- 
ham he becomes loquacious. In recollections of handicap 
sweepstakes, exciting ties, birds grassed at thirty yards,^^ 
and all the other details of pigeon-slaughter, one may 
surely hope that the lover has merged in the sportsman, 


42 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


that the unhappy subject of moonlight walks and artistic 

! )roclivities will be forgotten! John Farintyre becomes 
oquacious, and Mrs. Dormer, set free from that heaviest 
of social labors, conversation-making, lapses gratefully 
into silence. 


CHAPTER V. 

THOSE OYSTERS. 

At this very time Jo3^ce and Hugh Longmore are slowly 
re-entering the Hotel Scherer gardens. Afar off, Joyce 
recognizes the figures of Farintyre and of her mother, and 
stops short. 

‘‘ I can see,^^ she cries, by the bend of Mr, Farintyre^s 
head that he is amused — for the first time, I really believe, 
poor fellow, since we came to Switzerland. What happy 
inspiration can mamma have lighted upon? In any case, 
you and I are not wanted, Mr. Longmore. It would be 
cruel to interrupt them. 

The night is young. We have not seen the early snows 
upon the Jaman,^^ suggests young Hugh Longmore. 

Incipient sentiment is in his tone, and Miss Dormer 
crushes him promptly. 

We have not seeii the snows, but we have had quite as 
much star-gazing as is good for us,'^^ she remarks. We 
have sung our romantic moonlit duo at the back of the 
stage. Now for a comic scene or two before the foot-lights. 
What is life but a mixed opera? — an opera, in this case, it 
seems, with a ballet 

As she speaks Joyce turns down a dark, trellised path 
which, at the end of twenty or thirty paces, brings them 
directly in view of the ball-room windows. The dancers 
still dance; the veteran, with unflagging fingers, still 
thrums antiquated waltz tunes upon the battered piano. 

In a low and somewhat mischievous tone, Joyce Dormer 
requests Longmore to point out ‘‘ his friends to her. 

Miss Aurora Skelton I recognize. Her relatives I can 
guess at. Who is the thin little lady waltzing backward? 

• — the lady with a profile, a Spanish mantilla, diamonds, 
and eyes?^^ 

That,^^ answers Longmore, is Mrs. Colonel Scipio 
Leonidas P, Briggs, of New Orleans. Her partner is an 


A BALLROOM REPEMTAKCE. 


43 


Anglo-Saxon-speaking Parisian, freshly arrived in Clarens, 
and between them they are executing the only civilized 
dance to which the world has yet attained, the Boston. 
Mrs. Scipio Leonidas Briggs would herself call it the 
‘ Bors’on. 

‘‘ Mrs. Scipio Leonidas Briggs is that marvelously rare 
being — a graceful woman. Bor Joyce has all an artistes 
generous appreciation of the good points of others. Yes, 
Mr. Longmore, and she is so in spite of the ‘ Bors^on,^ in 
^ite of h^er exaggerated partner. We Nineteenth Century 
Englishwomen attitudinize and mimic, adds Miss Dor- 
mer. We get painters to design our dresses, we take the 
celebrities of all the ages for our models, and succeed — to 
the point of becoming articulated lay-figures! The first 
little American girl one meets, overloaded though she may 
be with French finery, as much surpasses us in her grace 
of movement as the Eoman women surpass us in their 
walk and carriage. Perhaps the sun is wanted for the 
ripening of this kind of beauty, as it is for grapes and 
olives. 

Have you lived all your life in sunshine asks Hugh 
Longmore quickly. 

Ere he has had time to repent, as Joyce would certainly 
give him occasion to do, of the compliment, the piano 
ceases. Mrs. Scipio Leonidas Briggs and her partner come 
forth into the night. 

The invalid wears a dress of amber satin, a color that 
well suits her pallid alabaster skin. A Spanish lace man- 
tilla is thrown over Mrs. Scipio^s head. Among the care- 
lessly arranged waves of her black hair rests a solitary pur- 
ple-damask rose. 

Her partner is a young gentleman with nervous eyes, a 
waxen complexion, and a head of the type that school-girl 
novelists describe as Shelley-like — plenty of intellectual 
brow, plenty of fair curls, plenty of nose : mouth and chin 
wanting. This young gentleman ^s accent is nasal, his 
manner Frenchified; his clothes are made by a Parisian 
tailor; a gardenia is in his button-hole. 

Passable outline, he remarks, indicating the finest 
sweep of mountain in Europe, with a couple of languid, 
primrose fingers, and the air of a man who has heroically 
resolved to endure Nature — for a fortnight. 

Well, the Alps are handsome, Mrs. Scipio Leonidas 


44 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


admits. If I was a well person/^ she has been dancing 
the Boston for exactly sixteen minutes without halting to 
draw breath, I should take some sublime trips around 
among these scenes. But I am quite too sick and fragile 
for strong exertion. It^s my dyspepsia, you see, that^s my 
trouble. ^ ’ 

She is looking lovely as a dream. The darkness of the 
night seems reflected in her lustrous eyes, one diamonded 
hand clasps her lace mantilla across her throat, the other 
rests upon her partner's arm. Mrs. Scipio Leonidas 
Briggs by moonlight is more than pretty. She is poetic. 

The mood of the Shelley-like young gentleman softens. 
It occurs to him, perhaps, that Nature, in some society, 
might be endured — a little longer than a fortnight. He 
hints at the loneliness of his partner's lot, at her quasi 
widowhood, at the evil effect of moral unhappiness upon a 
sensitive organization. 

Mrs. Scipio Leonidas shakes her head; a quiver comes 
around her finely chiseled lips. 

It^s more than half of it the diet,^^ she remarks with 
feeling, and in a tone of deep earnestness. ‘‘ The diet in 
these watering-place hotels is vile. That^s about the key- 
note to my dyspeptic trouble. Look at my hand! Was 
ever such a bird^s claw seen? My dresses fall off me. I^m 
positively obliged to give up wearing my marriage ring. 
My! yes, I wrote and told the colonel so, last mail. But 
what can you expect with such a cuisine f Why, to speak 
of oysters alone,'''' says Mrs. Leonidas, warming up with 
her subject. They give you what they call oysters cer- 
tainly, poor shriveled tasteless bivalves, here in Europe. 
Think of them in New York!^^ 

A look of soft and mournful retrospect crosses the lady^s 
features; her voice modulates. 

You get those oysters with breakfast roasted on the 
half-shell, or deviled, or steamed. You get them as an 
appetizer before dinner, raw, luscious and juicy-— my, yes! 
sweet, tender, portly. You get them at dinner, stewed, 
tossed up in crumbs, cooked in pies, put into sauces. 
You get them at all times, for about one franc, French 
money, the dozen. These regrets are weak, I know. It 
donT do in absence to talk about horne.^^ And something 
very like a tear shines in Mrs. Scipio" s dark eyes. But 
you see, sir, one"s heart feels like overflowing at times. 


BALLKOOM REPEKTAKCE. 


45 


Mountains and lakes, and traveling around may suit for a 
well person. A dyspeptic invalid wants a considerable deal 
more nourishment than can be taken out of handsome 
scenery. 

And upon this, Mrs. Scipio Leonidas, delicate, ethereal- 
looking as moonlight itself, glides away upon her partner's 
arm into the deeper shadows of the terrace. At the same 
moment, the figures of John Farintyre and Mrs. Dormer 
come suddenly within the full glare of the salon windows. 

You have returned, Joyce, darling, cries Mrs. Dormer, 
her voice moved by just a tremble of soft anxiety. ‘‘ In 
spite of Mr. Farintyre’ s laughing at me, I was beginning 
to shiver at the thought of possible robbers and preci- 
pices.” 

“ AVe did our best to get into danger,” answers Joyce 
carelessly; but, alas! in vain. It seems part of my fate 
always to be safe, over-safe. How did your ecarte get on, 
mother?” she adds, as Farintyre and young Longmore 
stand face to face, in the true attitude of men who never 
mean to like each other, and without exchanging a word., 
‘‘ You have won half a do^en pairs of gloves, I hope, from 
Mr. Farintyre?” 

‘‘ Mrs. Dormer has won a dozen and a half pairs of 
gloves of me,” says Farintyre, in a tone that jars, inex- 
plicably, on Hugh Longmore ’s ear. 

Joyce’s small feet twinkle a step or two, keeping time to 
the dance music within. 

Victor! Mamma and I wear the same size. When 
you write to Jouvin, ask my advice, Mr. Farint3rre, as to 
the colors you shall order.” 

Mr. Farintyre does not answer. He stands, heavily 
shifting from one foot to the other. He makes a sorry 
attempt at whistling, looking steadily the while across 
Longmore’s shoulder in the direction where Joyce Dormer 
is not 

As he stands thus, a stir of muslin flounces, a flutter of 
ribbons, make themselves heard at the nearest salon win- 
dow. Aurora Skelton, disheveled from the dance, but 
partnerless, gives him a speaking glance through a fold of 
curtain. 

And a quick, revolutionary movement stirs in poor John 
Farintyre’s breast. 

He is free: how many times a day has Joyce Dormer not 


46 


A BALLROOM REPBKTAKCE. 


reminded liim of the f act^ on rainy days spent in Swiss inns, 
especially? What shall hinder him from striking out an 
original path of action? Why shall he not try reprisals, show 
this girl who makes his torture her amusement, that others 
can play the same game, enlist the same jealousies as her- 
self? Why should he not invite Aurora Skelton to dance? 

Capital polka, that! Looks a tolerable floor, too,^^ he 
observes, moving somewhat nervously away from Mrs. 
Dormer as he produces a pair of gloves from his breast 
pocket and returns the glance of Aurora Skelton^s e3^eg 
with interest. More than half a mind to go in for a 
turn — ^ take the creases out of my knees, ^ as the Californian 
young lady said in ^ Punch. ^ 

You think of gorngioTiere^Mx, Farintyre?^^ asks Joyce, 
advancing a perceptible inch or two, still in time with the 
music, in his direction. 

John Farintyre repeats the joke, feeling that it does not 
sound more witty in the second edition. He makes some 
halting remark to the effect that gentlemen being scarce 
this evening, he, as a dancing man, ought to do his duty. 
Ladies seem to be standing out, and — 

Do you mean that you would condescend to dance, 
really and truly? Well, then,^^ cries Miss Dormer, as 
though moved by a sudden impulse, I invite you to be 
my partner. W e will have an extra dance of our own, here, 
on the greensward, and with the moon to light us. Do 
you refuse?^^ 

In this moment Joyce is seduction personified. A smile 
— that rare delightful smile — ^irradiates the face upheld to 
Fairntyre^s; her hands (the odor of wild thyme, no doubt, 
still clinging to them) are clasped toward him in a gesture 
of mock entreaty; an aureole of yellow light shines round 
her blonde and graceful head. 

Hugh Longmore says to himself with conviction that he 
detests her! 

I thought you made a point of not dancing extra 
i dances, that that was one of your very few principles, says 
i Farintyre, ironically emphatic. You have told me so, I 
I am sure, pretty often — 

i In crowded London ball-rooms, no doubt I have. What 

j mortal being could want to do more than stern duty at a 
! London ball? In Clarens it is quite another thing. 

[i You put principle aside. Miss Dormer, in Clarens?^^ 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 47 

So thoroughly, that I am a suppliant for the honor of 
Mr. Farintyre’s hand. Am I successful.^^^ 

And in another moment Farintyre^s arm encircles the 
girFs slight waist. She rests her finger-tips upon his 
shoulder — ta-ra, lira goes the thumping polka tune on M. 
Scherer^s piano — and off they dance along the terrace, now 
receding out of sight, now reappearing amidst the stage 
like ebon and ivory effects of the moonlit garden. 

Mrs. Dormer watches the two figures With serene absorp- 
tion for some seconds, marking the polka-rhjrthm by one soft 
palm on the other. Then she remembers her good breed- 
ing, and young Hugh Longmore^s existence. 

‘^Have you remarked the singular greenish color the 
lake puts on at liight, Mr. Longmore? You can trace it 
at this moment like a river from Bouveret to Evian. Per- 
haps you would see what I mean if we were out of reach of 
gas-light. 

And across the terrace with noiseless, youthful tread, 
Joyce ^s mother glides, Hugh Longmore, feeling a culpably 
lukewarm interest as to greenish coloring of the lake, fol- 
lowing her. 

^ Clarens, sweet Clarens,^ repeats Mrs. Dormer pres- 
ently. ‘ Birthplace of deep love.*" Do you care for Lord 
Byron ^s verse, or like most men of this generation, are you 
a believer in Browning onlyr^'' 

Hugh Longmore cares little for verse of any kind: Latin 
hexameters and Greek iambics having drilled the taste out 
of him at as early an age as they drill it out of most English 
public-school boys. He confesses the truth: over-bluntly, 
perhaps. 

Well, I believe all the best poetry is, at this stage of the 
nineteenth century, written in prose. If poets like Goethe 
would only exercise their imaginations upon a basis of fact. 

Saying which Mrs. Dormer gives her companion a quick 
and comprehensive glance. A lad of his years who cares 
not for verse 77mst, at the world ^s present age, she decides, 
care for science. And (although Hugh Longmore, person- 
ally, may be regarded ,as detrimental, a good-looking hu- 
man factor much better omitted from the present sum of 
Joyce^s love-affairs) fragmentary feminine science-talk is an 
accomplishment which J oyce^s mother can never refrain 
from exhibiting. 

When we came to Switzerland three weeks ago, we put 


48 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAMCE. 


Tyndairs ‘ High Alps and, of course, ^ Childe Harold ^ 
into our portmanteaus. We have been reading the two 
books alternately, with a marked preference for the ‘ High 
Alps. "" Byron^s raptures about mountains and glaciers 
seem tawdrily theatrical, side by side with the plain speak- 
ing of the man of science. You remember that magnificent 
passage in which the sun is called the sculptor of the Alps? 
‘ It was he who raised aloft the waters which cut out these 
ravines, he who planted the glaciers on the mountain slopes, 
he who, acting through the ages, will finally lay these 
mountains low, so that the people of an older earth, shall 
see mold spread and corn wave over the rocks which, at this 
moment, bear the weight of the Jungfrau. "" 

Mrs. Hormer^s sparkling, dimpled face has grown grave, 
as with trained tone and delivery she makes the quotation. 
Thought is in her eyes, a tremble of emotion round her 
mouth. Had this young undergraduate’s taste inclined to- 
ward Eousseauism she could, with her talent of lending her- 
self entirely to thp moment, have recited for him the neces- 
sary half-dozen stanzas from Ohilde Harold have recited 
them with an interest in self-torturing sophistry, fevered 
lips, and beautiful madness, as warm as that which she now 
expends on glaciers and on mountains. 

But Hugh Longmore, whatever his belief in his owm 
knowledge of the world, is, at heart, no cynic. Hugh 
Longmore, unversed in the httle feints and doubtings of in- 
tellectual coquetry, never doubts that Mrs. Dormer^s love 
for geological learning and scientific prediction is sincere. 

And John Farintyre a shoi4 quarter of an hour ago be- 
lieved the same: of course with the unimportant substitu- 
tion of pigeon-shooting for geology, as the object of Mrs. 
DormeFs enthusiasm! 


CHAPTEE VI. 

TOO DEEP EOR TEARS. 

You see, mamma, your liking is at second-hand. The 
clew to much fine philosophy may be found in that. If I 
had a sister or a cousin, placed as I am placed, depend upon 
it I could be attached to Mr. John Farintyre, vicariously!^^ 
We can most of us like where and how we choose, 

. Joyce, Take me for an instance. I was not romantically 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTAKCE. 


49 


attached to your jiapa when first we were engaged, when 
first we were married even/^ 

‘^And afterward cries Joyce, opening her blue eyes 
wide. 

As long as the girl can remember anything, her parents, 
divided by a quarter of a century in age, have lived heroic- 
ally apart; Mr. Dormer writing charming little lover-like 
letters to his absent wife, Mrs. Dormer constantly on her 
dutiful road to join her husband and his tea-pots in Italy— 
but apart, nevertheless. 

Afterward, child, I exercised myself strenuously in the 
most precious virtue a woman can possess or j)ractice — tol- 
eration. Your poor father^ s artistic tastes — (I am quite 
ready to admit the delicacy of his health) — drew him toward 
the soft do-nothingness of a Southern hfe. By an effort of 
will I early put myself so much in his place as to imagine 
that — ^for Mr. Dormer — such an existence might be the 
highest possible ! Quite other duties lay to my hand, J oyce. 
I had to think of you. When you were little, it was need- 
ful to live in climates, notably London and Paris, unless 
Joyce ^s memory be at fault, where English children 
thrive. Later on, I had to think of masters and govern- 
esses; later still, to keep up old connections, to form new 
friends. To the best of my power I fulfilled my duties, 
both as wife and mother; guided, enlightened, always by 
one principle, that of toleration. 

You have an even temper, mamma,^^ says Joyce, a lit- 
tle remorsefully. I have not. Yon can put up in others, 
in J ohn Farintyre, for example, with all the qualities most 
unlike your own. I can not. And besides, mother — yes, 
you have told me so yourself — for a moment Joyce'^s fair 
face blazes from temple to throat then grows white agaui — 

although you were not, as you sa}", romantically in love 
with my father, you never cared for any one else. Tol- 
eration, remember, may have come to you through other 
channels than it does, or ever can, come to me. 

The village clocks along the lake shore one after another 
have struck midnight, the hghts are extinguished in Hotel 
Scherer, the revelers at rest. But Mrs. Dormer and Joyce 
still linger at the open window of their sitting-room. A 
certain look upon the faces of both — of pained entreaty, de- 
spite its power, on the girPs, of cool determination, despite 
its smoothness^ on the mothers — betokens that their talk 


50 


A BALLKOOM REPEI^TAKCE. 


is of other things than charities, calling-cards, art, music, 
or even the last shape of bonnet with which we are threat- 
ened for the winter. 

Too much ^ caring,^ as you express it, for another ends 
in not caring enough for one^s self. You ought to have 
learned that bitter truth.'"'’ 

Did I ever say I had not learned it, mother 

I do not see that you carry the lesson into practice. If 
on the threshold of life a girl chance to fall into any — well,'"^ 
hesitates Mrs. Dormer, vainly seeking a euphemistic phrase 
— “ any deplorable sentimental mischief, it should, if she 
be wise, and when the first smart is over, become a step- 
ping-stone, not a stumbling-block, for the rest of her days. 

It seems to me I am very wise, says Joyce. Al- 
though the first smart of the sentimental mischief, after 
more than two years, is not over! In what way am I open 
to the charge of not caring enough for myself.^ My life is 
one long selfishness. 

You care, seriously and deeply, for nothing — except, 
of course, your violin-playing,^^ remarks Mrs. Dormer, with 
an accent of quite unwonted humor. Think of Sir Ken- 
neth Grant — of your levity — 

Mother,'"^ interrupts the girl, turning briefly round, 
then standing so that the two face each other full, if we 
are to have recriminations let us also have plain speaking. 
I accepted Sir Kenneth at a time when reason was dead m 
me. My heart was breaking over my great sorrow — yes, 
my heart was breaking, though I wore no black, and went 
to operas and balls and garden-parties through it all. And 
Sir Kenneth Grant was kind and so old — papal’s age, or 
more! And I thought, God help me, he would look for no 
love of that kind from me, and you said that once married 
I should forget my pain — 

And when the wedding orders had been given/^ ob- 
serves Mrs. Dormer, coldly, as the words die on Joyce ^s 
passionate lips, and when the marriage settlements were 
drawn out you told Sir Kenneth, one of my oldest, dearest 
friends, that you held it would be better to die, yes, and 
that you besought Heaven, night and morning, for death, 
sooner than that you should stand before the altar as his 
wife. 

Sir Kenneth himself gave me an opening,'"^ exclaims 
Joyce^ with a face of marble. He came upon me sudden- 


A BALLROOM REPEMTAMCE* 


51 


ly one morning — have I not told you the story before? Sir 
Kenneth came in^ unannounced^ just as I was trying, 
through my tears, to look over some jewels that he had 
sent for me to choose from. And when he asked me the 
meaning of my tears, I answered him truly. You know 
the rest. You know how he was good and loyal and pitiful 
enough to absolve me of my word.^^ 

And poor young Vesey Armytage?^^ 

Poor young Vesey Armytage was, really, and in fact, 
an admirer of vours, mamma, cries the girl, but in a 
lighter voice. I will not be made responsible for Vesey 
Armytage ^s blighted happiness.'’^ 

And now, John Farintyre?^^ 

And now, John Fan* n tyre. Mother, why this tragic 
tone? John Farintyre likes, it would seem, to travel about 
the world in our wake, carrying our shawls and losing our 
tickets and our luggage at the railway-stations, and hearing 
harsh things said to fiimself from morning till night. If, 
after seeing a great deal of each other, I do not grow to dis- 
like him very much more, and if, as years go on, I decide 
on marrying at all, it is a settled thing between Mr. Far- 
intyre and myself, that — ^we should begin to think over the 
question of becoming engaged in earnest. 

Mrs. Dormer ^s cheek kindles; a flash of the eyes makes 
one understand how Mr. Dormer has found it in his heart 
to live apart from this angelic little wife of his during a 
good three fourths of his married life. 

John Farintyre has more brain and more heart than 
you give him credit for, Joyce. He was talking to me, seri- 
ously, this evening, about a matter he has not courage to 
touch upon to you. If you could ha\ e seen his face after 
you had started with Mr. Longmore for your lesson in as- 
tronomy,"^^ adds Mrs. Dormer with emphasis, ‘^you would 
realize, perhaps, that John Farintyre^s patience may, one 
day, come to an end.^^ 

I thought John Farintyi’e honestly and truly prefen^ed 
pla3dng cards with you. John Farintyre does not know one 
star from another. He does not care for pine woods and 
mountain wild-flowers, and talk about Beethoven by moon- 
light. His friend, Mr. Longmore, does. Such a nice boy, 
Mr. Longmore is, mamma, and without a shilling in the 
world, he tells me, unless some day or other he should be 
able to work for one. I wonder, says Joyce musingly. 


53 


A BALLROOM BEPEKTAKCE. 


“ why the people I like are invariably people without a shil- 
ling. 

‘ ^ Do you mean to say that you ‘ like ^ this exceedingly 
commonplace, stiff-jointed undergraduate, after half an 
hour^s acquaintance?'’^ 

I feel that I could make a companion of Mr. Longmore, 
certainly. Why do you smile, mother ?^^ 

I was thinking of some of your mistakes, child! — of the 
people all over Europe you have felt positive would he com- 
panionable,^^ says Mrs. Dormer miJdly, until — you grew 
tired of them. 

Joyce walks restlessly away from her mother^s side. 

That is the worst thing of all, ^ until I grew tired.'’ Ay, 
and I grow tired of everything, except of my Stradivarius, 
which does not belong much to our outward life. It is use- 
less, I am afraid, mother, this searching into the faults of 
my character. There is a fatal warp in me. I know it. 
On the day I lost happiness, something in myself, ay, in 
my very heart, was lost too. Mr. Farintyre must he con- 
tent to make the best of me, faults and all, or to leave me.-’'’ 

‘‘ Do you wish him to leave you, Joyce? Be honest. 
Would you have been content this evening, even, for him to 
join the dancers in the salon — to join them,^^ adds Mrs. 
Dormer, with a Miss Aurora Skelton, a partner too low 
for possible rivalry?^^ 

Joyce reflects for some moments before answering: 

‘‘If John Farintyre were to marry some person better 
suited to him than I — say, if he were to marry Eosie Las- 
celles of the Ambiguity — I should feel relieved. Fancy, 
never hearing the jingle of the Farintyre money again? As 
long — well, as long as things remain as they are — as long as 
the only son of the house thinks fit to run about the world 
in our society — I prefer seeing him at his best. He would 
not have shown to his best in the too congenial atmosphere 
of a Swiss hotel ball. 

“ I am pained by your tone, Joyce: Lady Joan Majendie 
assures me that the Farintyres are a most excellent family.-” 

“ Mother!” 

“ JohnFarintyre^s great-grandfather, Mr. Duncan Farin- 
tyre, was a Scotch laird living at the end of the last century 
on his fathers small estate, in — in Peebles, I think — some- 
where.” 

“ Lady Joanns family histories want backbone. Must 


A BALLROOM RRREHTAKCE. 


53 


not everybody's great-grandfather at the end of the last 
century have been living on his father^s small estate — 
Somewher^^^ 

But in the general social disruption that followed/^ 
says Mrs. Dormer, with large vagueness, upon the first 
French revolution, Duncan Farintyre, like hundreds of 
other gentlemen’s sons, had to seek his fortune, to sustain 
the family name, in business. How the good blood has dis- 
played itself since, how honorably the Farintyres, step by 
step, have made their way, is proved by the brilliant fort- 
une of the present head of the firm. On the score of culti- 
vation, everything has been done for the son that Eton and 
Oxford can do.” 

‘‘ That is not saying much for Eton and Oxford. John 
Farintyre rode the best horses of any man in his college, 
was celebrated for his ratting successes, and got sent down 
twice for practical wit with screw-drivers and paint-pots. 
Also, not having passed mods, by the end of his eighth 
term of residence, he was asked by those in authority to re- 
move himself elsewhere. You look skeptical, mother. We 
will use Mr. Farintyre’ s' own words in speaking of this part 
of his career: ^ Was humbugged out of Oxford by the 
dons.’” 

I know too well what your tone means, ” cries Mrs. 
Dormer, with chill displeasure. know too well how 
these hypercritical judgments are likely to end. You will 
keep John Farintyre (or John Farintyre ’s successor) in a 
state of cruel suspense for years, caring not so much for 
him as you would care for a dog who had been trained to 
fetch and carry obediently. Then when the best part of a 
woman’s life, when the bloom of your youth is wasted — ” 

‘‘John Farintyre (or John Farintyre’s successor) will 
throw me over, and you, mamma, will have a crabbed, dis- 
appointed daughter looking a dozen years older than your- 
self, upon your hands. Never mind, little mother,” adds 
Joyce lightly, “if our fortunes come to the lowest ebb, 
there will be Stradivarius. My music masters have all told 
me I could make a name as an artist. We will leave ‘ a 
name ’ alone. I could earn a living, probably, by going out 
to play dance-music — violin, harp and French horn — at 
evening parties.” 

A scene of the kind I am describing is rare exceedingly 
between Mrs. Dormer and Joyce. So superficially alike, 


54 


A BALLROOM RRREl^TAKCE. 


that their every-day tastes and wishes are identical, so un- 
like, in truth, that each can barely guess at the other^s 
deeper feelings, this mother and daughter continually ap- 
proximate, yet, like certain geometrical lines known to 
mathematicians, never blend. 

When the polished surface of their lives does become 
ruffled, when a conversation by accident takes a pungently 
personal turn, or a situation borders on the dramatic, Mrs. 
Dormer on the instant rises to vantage-ground. 

Is it not a commonplace in domestic politics that a certain 
engaging and lachrymose weakness of manner shall alwa3^s 
triumph over dry-eyed moral strength? What weapons 
can not a soft little woman with weeps at command 
bring against an antagonist who loves her, and whose own 
emotions happen to lie too deep for tears? 

You confess that there is a warp in your character, 
that you have lost hope in life, that you care persistently for 
nothing. I know, I feel it. Ah, Joyce, and when you were 
little, was ever a child so quite too pathetically loving 
Here the large, over-innocent gray eyes reach sulfusion-* 
point. I was very ill, once, when you were five or six 
years old, and I was of course alone. With all his pleasant- 
ness of temper, with all his very genuine amiability, the 
witnessing of suffering in others was distasteful then, as 
now, to your poor father. Well, you stretched yourself out- 
side across the door (I was quite affected at what the nurse 
told me afterward), you declared you would not eat, would 
not be moved, dead or living, till you saw my face. Ah, 
and your joy when I got better! How you threw your dear 
little arms around my neck — how — 

But Mrs. Dormer^s utterance is choked. Tears are 
coursing down the fair cheeks on which eight-and-thirty 
years have left no disfiguring trace; and in another moment 
Joyce, on her knees, is at her mother^s side. 

Mamma, I love you, as I have always done. What 
have I on the earth to love but you? Forgive me!^^ And 
quickly contrite, she covers Mrs. Dormer^s hand with kisses. 

Tell me only what you wish, and I will try, if I have 
sufficient strength, to obey.' Oh, why can not we be all in 
all to each other, as we used to be in the happy light-heart- 
ed years when I was a girl:^^ 

Before Roger Tryan came between us,^^ exclaims Mrs. 
Dormer, adroitly introducing, in her emotion, a name she 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


55 


seldom has courage to mention in cold blood. And some- 
times you wonder that — in my poor mother^s heart — I 
cherish so much bitterness against that man!""^ 

The aim is clever; the mark overshot. Joyce is sensible 
of a recoil of feeling, a certain uncomfortable suspicion of 
stage effect. She rises promptly from her knees. 

I wonder at nothing, mamma. I know that vain re- 
grets do not kill, that I may have to live another forty or 
fifty years, and to make the best of them: to wake and 
sleep and dine and dress, and be as other people. It seems 
a necessity that some man^s peace shall be risked by my 
marrying,^^ she adds after a little pause. Well, money 
can buy — not happiness, but the means of forgetting one is 
unhappy. If sacrifice there must be, as well select a rich 
victim, John Earintyre or another. 

Would not such things as these be better unsaid, 
Joyce?^^ 

I think not, mother. The time is coming on when I 
may have perforce, once more a marble whiteness over- 
comes the youthful blood-hues of her cheeks, to be dumb! 
Let us be sincere, now, accustom ourselves to look evil in 
the face, but never pretend we think evil good. You 
have been talking this evening with John Farintyre about 
a subject that he has not courage to broach to me, himself. 
What is it?^^ 

Mrs. Dormer^s answer is given with infinite tact, with 
gentleness, with delicacy, with the lightest ornamental 
touch of tears: tears that might be compared to the^on- 
tura of Italian song, superadded notes, airily falling on the 
central melodic figure! But Joyce knows, were it only by 
the deadness of her own heart, that in that soft and fiowery 
answer is couched an ultimatum. 

John Farintyre pleads but for one encouraging word,^^ 
remarks Mrs. Dormer suavely. Every detail of his fate 
is to be left in your hands. You are both so young! An 
engagement of some months might be a really wise test of 
the fidelity of both. At the end of those months, we shall, 
I hope, be in Kome — 

Having wintered at Nice on our road!^"^ interrupts the 
girl, with meaning even Mrs. Dormer can not disregard. 

And near Nice lies Monte Carlo, and to the gambling- 
tables of Monte Cailo come visitors. As you have broken 
the ice yourself, mamma, you must i^ot be angry with me 


56 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


for mentioning Eoger Tryan^s name. Did you ever hear 
that he arrived in Nice a very short time after you and I 
had left, last winter?^ ^ 

Joyce asks the question with an obvious effort. Turning 
her head aside, she makes a pretense of consulting the time^ 
piece on a neighboring mantel-shelf. 

Last winter? — let me think! Yes, of course. Lady 
Joan Majendie did mention in one of her letters that Mr. 
Tryan, with his friends, the Pintos, was spending the spring 
in Nice. Very deplorable whispers, too,"'"’ adds Mrs. Dor- 
mer, with soft asperity, were current as to poor Mr. 
Tryan^s card losses! As long as he did not gamble, one 
might trust — trust in his reformation! But as Lady Joan 
says — 

Could a man not play, as girls occasionally go to balls 
and garden-parties, out of sheer weariness of spirit? 

I am no casuist, Joyce. I beheve wrong to be wrong, 
and Eoger Tryan lost 

Mrs. Dormer is in earnest. Her accents all but rise to 
tragedy. 

You class him with his associates, in short?^^ 

I desire to think neither of him nor of them. I do not 
see what connection persons like these can have with the 
subject of which we are speaking. 

^‘Persons like these might chance to return to Nice 
another winter.'’^ 

And even if they did so! Surely, child, you would not 
wish me to change our plans because there is a remote pros- 
pect of coming across Mr. Eoger Tryan and Mrs. Pinto 

At this cruel, intentional juxtaposition of names, Joyce 
winces, like one in bodily pain. 

Not only would I keep to our plans, mother; if oppor- 
tunity came, I would seek, once again in this mortal life, 
to meet and speak with Eoger Tryan. Has he ever had an 
actual honest chance of righting himself with me? That 
question forces itself upon my mind pretty often. 

When a man^s conduct proves him faithless, one would 
be disposed to value his protestations lightly. You could 
scarcely wish to hear,'’^ says Mrs. Dormer, that, next to 
the society of Captain and Mrs. Pinto, and roulette, Eoger 
Tryan still likes you best?'*'’ 

Joyce Dormer raises her eyes, a look of piteous entreaty 
in their l^lue depths^ to her mother^s. 


A BALLROOM RKPEKTAKOE. 


57 


No, mamma. It would be a kind oi death to hear 
that! I have had experience. I know, too well, that there 
can be no second-best in love. 

And I may give, at least, a gleam of hope to John 
Farintyre?^^ 

/‘Tell him to hope wisely. It is the friendliest word 
that can be spoken to him. 

“ I shall deliver the message intact, knowing well,^^ cries 
Mrs. Dormer archly, “ what bright interpretation the poor 
fellow ^s heart will put upon it. You would feel happier 
yourself, Joyce, were the future more settled. We are to 
be in Eome by March. Let it be a fixed thing that the 
wedding shall take place after Easter. 

“ Or all thoughts of the wedding be finally and forever 
given up. The conditions are just on both sides. These 
are Joyce^s last words as the mother and daughter part for 
the night. “ I shall be twenty-one in the second week of 
April, old enough, certainly, to know my own mind! And 
if I can — be sure you use the word, italicized, when you 
speak to Mr. Farint3rre — if I can, I will say ‘ yes ^ to him.^^ 

She runs upstairs with a buoyancy that her mother, easily 
hopeful, is fair to take as an auspicious omen, the burden 
of “ Carmen, mia Carmen adorata,^^ upon her lips. But 
deep on in the night, when the moon has sunk chill behind 
the snow-tops of the Savoy Mountains, when Mrs. Dormer, 
warm asleep, is dreaming the good dreams of a conscience 
and digestion at rest, Joyce, at her open window keeps 
vigil, her heart in revolt, a passion of dumb longing on her 
face. 

“ When a man-'s conduct has proved him faithless, one 
would be disposed to value his protestations lightly. ^ 

No disputing the truth of copy-book aphorisms. And 
yet, if she might come across her old sweetheart^s path, 
hear Eoger Tryan^s voice, feel his hand-clasp, it seems, in 
this hour, to Joyce Dormer^s illogical mind, that she could 
die content. 


CHAPTEE VII. 

CHARLOTTE AHD WERTHER. 

Durikg the next five days Hugh Longmore sees, hears, 
tastes, with quickened senses. Mountain and lake and sky 


58 


A BALLROOM RRBEKTAKCE. 


look bluer to him., music sounds more musical^ the thin 
Swiss wine served round at M. Scherer^ s table is as nectar. 

In these five days is compressed the greatest happiness 
of his life, a happiness so thorough, he tells himself, ^tis 
impossible he can be undergoing that series of morbid 
changes often philosophically watched by him in other men^ 
and which are the sure forerunners of the great unhappi- 
ness, love! The first sound that greets him in the morning 
is Joyce ^s violin practice, his room, "surely by providential 
arrangement, being in the same wing of the hotel as Mrs. 
Dormer ^s apartments. His first vision is of Joyce herself 
on the balcony, her blonde head shining in the eastern sun, 
as she spreads out a breakfast of crumbs for the sparrows 
— those delightful, familiar sparrows that are a specialty 
of Clarens. On such occasions, especially I fear if Mr. 
Farintyre be hovering nigh (black jealousy at his heart, a 
blacker pipe between his lips), she will thrqjy down a pas- 
sion-flower or rose, or sprig of jasmine to the young 
Oxonian; and when she does so, be assured that Longmore 
would change places with no crowned head in Europe! 
After this, the sparrows being dismissed, books and papers 
are brought out, and the ladies study. 

Poring, or seeming to pore, over his Greek traged}^, in 
some shaded corner of the terrace, Longmore will catch an 
occasional tone of Miss Dormer^s voice as she reads aloud 
from the Fortnightly,^^ or the Nineteenth Century,^'' 
or an article in the Times,^^ or the Eevue des deux 
Mondes,^^ or perhaps, the Lancet.'’^ Who knows better 
than Mrs. Dormer the amount and scope of reading that a 
life of gracefully intellectual nomadism demands? By and 
by, an early lunch over, comes the afternoon^s excursion, 
to-day around the lake, to-morrow to Glion, the next to 
Geneva excursions in which, by seeming hazard, always, 
young Hugh Longmore is asked to join. And then ’there 
are the evenings — moonlighted, cloudless, suave — even- 
ings made odorous by flowers, poetized by music, lifted 
curiously beyond the level of the lad^s hitherto prosaic En- 
glish experience, by the society of the two fair women who 
have so suddenly held out to him the hand of fellowship. 

In after times, it may well be that Longmore shall look 
back on Clarens with disrelish; shall remember the lake 
and its lateen sails, the terrace and its roses, the balcony 
and the girlish head that used to lean across its balustrade, 


A BALLROOM REPEKTA^tSTOE. 


59 


with disgust rather than tenderness. Once let next morn- 
ing ^s headache set in, and few men recall the sparkling 
primeval gayety engendered by hock or champagne with 
zest. But for these five days, in spite of common sense 
perpetually hinting to him that he is in a fool’s paradise, 
in spite of Farintyre’s uncongenial presence, in spite of the 
fact that Mrs. and Miss Dormer will sfcart for Como next 
Saturday, young Hugh Longmore dreams out his dream, 
and is contented. 

For five days; on the fifth, mainly through Miss Aurora 
Skelton’s agency, comes the chill process of awakening, 
some four-and- twenty hours earlier than, in the natural 
course of events, it need have done. 

Under the first smart of Longmore’s defalcation, poor 
Aurora’s policy resolved itself into one of compromise. She 
essayed the appeal, direct — in two fiats. Would he not 
come back to her, Douglas, Douglas? Aurora would ask, 
at the summit of her voice, whenever Douglas ventured 
within ear-shot of the crazy salon piano. Eeceiving no an- 
swer, she essayed rice-powdered cheeks, Aurora’s nearest 
possible approach to sentimental pallor, essayed banter, 
pouting, coyness: all in vain. At length, guided by the 
superior tact of Diana — if Pansy, oh, ye curates, have the 
virtue, and Aurora, oh, ye men of the world, the beauty, 
has not Diana, oh, ye seekers after culture, the intellect of 
the family: — guided and sustained by the superior wisdom 
of Diana, the younger Miss Skelton bethought herself of a 
newline of conduct: of Mr. John Farintyre, of reprisals. 
Abandoning guerilla warfare, she determined to carry the 
campaign straight into the very camp of the enemy. We 
shall see with what success. 

This long talked-of expedition to Chillon has not come 
off yet, it seems.” Mr. Farintyre is the. speaker, looking 
hot and uncomfortable, like a man at odds with his con- 
science. And the moon is just at her full. Let us see! 
To-day is Friday. You threaten to start for the Italian 
lakes to-morrow evening. Now, what decent excuse could 
be found — I’m sure I don’t know how to invent one — for 
not going to Chillon to-night with all these ladies?” 

An excuse for not going to Chillon with ladies!” ex- 
claims J oyce, looking round at him with an air of pleasant 
surprise^ She is drinking, afternoon tea with her mother 


60 


A BALLROOM REPENTA^TCE. 


and Farintyre on the terrace; young Longmore, by acci- 
dent, absent. Mother, is it possible that you have been 
planning moonlight boating-parties without my consent? 
This sort of wild conduct must be looked to. 

Eedder and redder grows the guilty face of poor John 
Farintyre. 

It is a party got up, you see, by some of the other 
ladies in the hotel — not a boating-party at all. An excur- 
sion steamer from Lausanne is to stop at the Olarens land- 
ing-place and take us on to Ohillon. I spoke — or rather 
she spoke — I mean Longmore introduced me to — ah — um 
— to Miss Aurora Skelton, the second evening I was here, 
and — 

And you have been improving the acquaintance ever 
since, observed Joyce, m a voice soft, unthreatening as 
the lake breeze among the roses. I believe I saw the 
lady talking to you, did I not, as you smoked your third 
pipe this morning.^ A lady with black eyes, damask 
cheeks, and a hearty laugh? Yes. And so, you and Miss 
Aurora Skelton are planning a moonlight expedition to 
Chillon for this evening ?^^ 

There is something in the rippling acquiescence of Joyce^s 
tone that Mrs. Dormer likes not. 

This evening will be our last in Olarens, Mr. Farintyre. 
I had intended to take a drive in the direction of Ouchy."^^ 

Mother, cries Joyce decisively, Chillon by moon- 
light is a thing to be done; Cookes coupons include the 
steamer fare, and Murray, I forget the exact page, supplies 
the needful ^ Ohilde Harold. ^ You -have, of course, ac- 
cepted Miss Aurora Skelton ^s invitation, Mr. Farintyre?^^ 

The invitation was from Mrs. Skelton and Mrs. Colonel 
Scipio Leonidas Briggs — jolly little American woman, you 
know, with the eyes and the Spanish mantilla, says Farin- 
tyre, looking more and more miserable. They passed by 
the smoking-room window this morning, all of them 
together, and asked me. And the Skeltons^ brother has 
arrived, T. S. , as they call him — an outrageous little cad he 
is, too — and Miss Aurora added, as there were ladies in my 
party — / 

In your party 

The exclamation comes in staccatoed accents, from Mrs. 
Dormer. 

Well, no, I douT mean that; she said as I had arrived 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTANCE. 


61 


the same day with Mrs. and Miss Dormer she — they — would 
be glad if — a look in Joyce^s blue eyes causes the words 
to freeze on his lips — ‘‘ if you would excuse the shortness of 
the notice, and join the expedition. 

‘‘I think, mamma, says the young girl, giving Mrs. 
Dormer a brief, suggestive glance, that the answer would 
come more fittingly from you. These ladies, with whom 
Mr. Farintyre has A Smoking Acquaintance, are civil 
enough, through Mr. Farintp'e, to invite us on board one 
of the Lausanne excursion steamers; shall we accept 

It is impossible that Mr. Farintyre can be in earnesL^'^ 
says Mrs. Dormer, failing to see humor in the situation. 

An overture that one can not call well-bred was made to 
him. His moral courage may have given way for the mo- 
ment, but — 

Mr. Farintyre is thoroughly in earnest — are you not, 
Mr. Farintyre? You have every intention of accompanying 
Miss Aurora Skelton and her friends to Chillon to-night?^'’ 

‘‘ I donH see how a fellow could get out of such a thing,^ ^ 
answers John Farintyre sheepishly. All very well to talk 
of ^ moral courage, sitting here, like this, protected — I 
mean, of course, with you and Mrs. Dormer. A girl meets 
you on the staircase, out in the garden, at • the door of the 
smoking-room. Dash it all ! A girl meets you everywhere, 
and puts the question to you plump. ^ Was I engaged for 
this evening, or was I not?^ Miss Skelton said!^^ 

And you answered truthfully, that you were not,^^ ob- 
serves Joyce approvingly. If any one, meeting me con- 
stantly, on staircases, in gardens, at the doors of smoking- 
rooms, were to ask me plump, ^ Was I engaged or was I 
notr^ I should display just the same want of moral courage 
as you did, Mr. Farintyre. I should answer emphatically: 

Dark gathers the cloud in a moment on JohnFarintyre^s 
low forehead. 

His regard for Joyce Dormer is, doubtless, after a fashion 
sincere. Still, could one analyze this regard (in the prom- 
ised moral laboratory of the future, say, that laboratory 
wherein the ultimate elements of human character shall be 
chemically tested), it would prove to be made up of some- 
what doubtful ingredients. Joyce Dormer is fair, well- 
born, gifted. Joyce Dormer is also, or has the reputation 
of being, hard to win; and John Farintyre ^s vanity is fiat- 


62 


A BALLROOM REPEN^TAi^^CE. 


tered by the vision of unsuccessful predecessors. But, in 
his heart of hearts, he is afraid of her, ever ready to mis- 
construe her kindest smiles, to detect a latent irony in her 
sweetest speech. 

A man in choosing a wife should seek to better his con- 
nection. A man who marries an actress loses caste for- 
ever. These are the doctrines in which Farintyre^s newly 
enriched, stanchly conservative parents have reared him, 
the doctrines upon which he is now dutifully acting. And 
yet— the thought crosses him a dozen times a day — if social 
prejudice were less rigid, if Eosie Lascelles were inside the 
pale of eligibility, how joyful might be his wooing of her, 
how smooth their married life! 

For Eosie Lascelles of the Ambiguity, mentally and 
morally, is on his own level. And although some excep- 
tional women may prefer the tiptoe attitude in love, men of 
the caliber of Mr. John Farintyre do not. 

There is no need for you to make these confessions. 
Miss Dormer. Your actions show, plain enough, that you 
consider yourself a free agent. 

Free as air,^^ responds Joyce gayly, and with no 
prospect of becoming fettered. I wonder how you and I 
can console ourselves this evening, mamma, while all the 
world goes to Chillon? Mr. Longmore shall offer a sug- 
gestion.-^^ 

The young Oxonian, his good-looking face glowing after 
an icy swim in the lake, makes his appearance at this 
critical moment; and Mrs. Dormer pours out a cup of tea 
for him with more cordiality than her wont. 

A passionless observer of human character stands on 
somewhat the same vantage-ground as the political leader 
of a minority. Both are vested with the sacred irresponsi- 
bility of opposition. Mrs. Dormer is absolutely passionless. 
She watches the moral twists and turnings of her fellow- 
mortals with less emotion than many naturalists feel as they 
watch the movements of the creatures in an aquarium. 
Hence, probably, the soundness of her judgments. At the 
first signs of insurrection shown by Mr. John Farintyre, 
that young Croesus must, she decides, be made to feel him- 
self in the cold. She reads the weak, ungenerous temper 
far too accurately to try conciliation, as her own finer tact 
and culture might prompt her to do in the case of a differ- 
ently molded man, 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


63 


John Farintyre must be made to feel himself in the cold. 
A cup of tea is poured out graciously for Hugh Longmore. 
Joyce, with an air of business, sets herself to the cutting 
of bread and butter. For afternoon tea in M. Scherer^ s 
establishment is a reality, not a pretense. 

Are you not reminded of the great bread and butter 
scene in ^ Werther She smiles at Longmore with her 
eyes rather than her lips as she asks him this. ‘‘We have 
got the lake, the mountains, the bread and the butter. 

“And certainly the Charlotte, adds Longmore, over- 
looking Farintyre^s presence. “ But where is Albert?^ ^ 
The brow of the man of shares grows darker. He draws 
forth a tobacco pouch from his breast pocket. 

“You have an intermittent dislike, I know, Mrs. Dor- 
mer, for tobacco smoke. Under the influence of jealous 
temper John Farintyre almost utters a sarcasm. “Sol 
may as well take myself off. Miss Dormer and Mr. Long- 
more, evidently, have mutual acquaintance to talk over.^^ 
“ Mutual acquaintance!^^ cries Joyce, clapping her slender 
white hands. “ Oh, this is delightful! Mr. Farintyre, 
after all the culture of Eton and Oxford, do you not know 
who Charlotte and Albert are?^^ 

“ Of course I donT, and I have no curiosity to,^^ says 
Farintyre, savagely ungrammatical. “All of us are free 
as air — you reminded me of that just now — free. Miss Dor- 
mer, to make as many or as few new acquaintances as suits 

“ But these are intimate friends, people we have known 
for years. 

Never has Longmore seen Joyce in a mood at once so 
dangerous and so tantalizing. She turns her face, lighted 
with archness that is more bewitching than a smile, full 
upon Farintyre. 

“ Charlotte and Albert are characters in a novel, sir! 
Goethe/s ‘ Sorrows of Werther.'’ You never read it ? — 
never read the book that, a hundred years ago, set half the 
gilded youth in Europe thinking of suicide 

If any man in real life ever made use of the expression 
written down in old-fasliioned plays and romances as 
“ Pshaw !^^ I should say it was John Farintyre at this mo- 
ment. Turning upon his heel, he moves some paces away 
from the rest, and there stands, surveying the blue ex- 
panse of lake, with eyes that in reality see only the mocking 


64 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


girlish face of Joyce Dormer, the compressed smile, that 
he, Farintyre, construes into one of irony, around the lips 
of Longmore. 

We are going to spend quite a lonely forsaken evening, 
mamma and 1 /’ remarks the voice that Mr. Farintyre loves 
and hates alternately. There is some moonlight expe- 
dition, Mr. Longmore, got up by the ladies in this house, 
to which all the world is going — ^you, perhaps, among the 
rest?^^ 

I think not,^^ answers young Hugh Longmore. Some 
one in the hotel was good enough to write me a note of in- 
vitation, but — 

You found it possible to get out of the way of tempta- 
tion?^^ interrupts Joyce. ‘‘ Or had you actually moral 
courage enough to plead a previous engagement? 

I refused. Miss Dormer, ■without excuse or extenuation. 
If the whole duty of man requires one to visit Chillon by 
moonlight, at least let the visit be got through alone. 

Ah, this is disappointing to our hopes. If you had 
not used the word ‘ alone ^ we might have thrown our- 
selves on your compassion. My mother and I will be left 
to our own resources to-night — Mr. Farintyre, of course, 
going with the crowd! And so, as you are a good rower, I 
thought, perhaps, you would take us out, just far enough 
to get a distant view of Chillon from the lake. What do 
you say, mamma?^^ 

To Joyce^s surprise Mrs. Dormer is acquiescent; prog- 
nosticates neither sore throats, low fever, storms, brigands, 
nor Mrs. Grundy. And John Farintyre, anathematizing 
woman^s frailty in his soul, is forced to listen, with what 
grace he may, while the evening’s programme is canvassed 
in detail. By and by comes a suggestion, originating 
obliquely from Joyce, that e-very one’s Byron ” would be 
the better for rubbing up. How if Mr. Longmore should 
read aloud the Prisoner of Chillon ”? There will be 
ample time for him to do so between this and dinner, while 
she and her mother work. 

Charming! I will run for the book at once,” cries 
Mrs. Dormer, rising with youthful vivacity to her feet. 
John Farintyre, cynical and jealous, feels convinced that 
the scene has been rehearsed between Mrs. and Miss Dormer 
beforehand. The most innocent, unpremeditated word 
savors to his jaundiced moral perception of tag.” Will 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


65 


you be idle or work your tapestry, dear child? Work your 
tapestry. Then I will bring it out for you with my own 
knitting, and the ^ Prisoner. 

And five minutes later Longmore is clearing his throat, 
looking red, and feeling about as happy as he felt on the 
first occasion when he stood in the presence of Oxford ex- 
aminers, while his companions, cool, fresh as the roses that 
grow about their heads, are settling themselves to work. 

If all the pretty things men of genius have written about 
women and needles could be collected on a page together, 
the picture of Mrs. and Miss Dormer at this moment would 
offer a fair apology for their extravagance. The elder 
lady ^s work is a stocking of softest pearl gray silk, precisely 
at the stage of development — does it ever, I wonder, get 
beyond that stage? — when you may say, there is a stock- 
ing,^ ^ yet when no vulgar anatomical suggestions distress 
the eye. Joyce, with a very bright needle, and a very long 
thread, stitches dreamily at a scroll of mediaeval tapestry, 
worked and sold at South Kensington, with a minimum 
portion of grounding to be finished by the buyer — an 
enigmatic, low-toned mediaeval scroll, in perfect artistic 
keeping with the sober-tinted dress on which it rests, and 
the fair and serious face that bends above it. 

“ ‘ My hair is gray, but not with years/ ” 

So Longmore begins, with well-trained cadence, his voice 
sufficiently moved by boyish diffidence to give the reading 
enhanced interest. And the swallows circle low above the 
sultry lake, the boatmen^s lateen sails droop motionless. 
Mr. John Earintyre, pipe in mouth, paces up and down a 
neighboring path (the fall of his footstep furnishing no in- 
appropriate refrain to the story of the poem), gloomily 
speculating as he walks. 

Joyce Dormer has aroused his vanity rather than con- 
quered his senses. The Rubens coloring, the ample outlines 
of a Rosie Lascelles, nay, even the coarser charms of an 
Aurora Skelton, are, in very truth, on a nearer level with 
his tastes, than the blonde ethereal graces of the girl whose 
pleasure it has been, during the past three months, to in- 
thrall and torture him alternately. 

This side the altar, chances of failure still giving ardor 
to pursuit, such capricious, bitter-sweet relationship as 
exists between them, may be tolerable. But afterward? 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


G6 

What kind of future lies stored up for him? What are his 
own personal chances of happiness? What companionship 
can he hope for in a wife whose heart died with the loss of 
her first lover — candidly did she confess that truth to him 
in the earliest hour; when he hinted to her of his own pas- 
sion — a wife whose tastes are divided between music^ whick 
he honestly dislikes, and books, of which he never willingly 
reads a line? 

O^ne event, at least, is certain, decided Mr. Farintyre,. 
barbarously cutting otf a carnationr head with the point of 
his cane, departure from Clarens. The successes of this 
young puppy, Longmore, of Corpus, draw to a close. Let 
him talk of Albert and Charlotte, read his Byron, go in for 
attitude while he may/^ The lad is lying outstretched, in 
quiet, unconscious picturesqueness, upon the terrace at the 
ladies^ feet. It is his final score. Longmore of Corpus 
and Miss Dormer will have no more starht walks, wdll 
spend no more long intellectual hours in each other^’s 
society, while they live. 

In which prediction John Farintyre, as events turn ouL 
proves singularly wrong. 

Throughout the afternoon the air continues warm to op- 
pressiveness. The sun sets above Ouchy in a bank of cop- 
per-colored cloud. The wind sinks lower and lower. M. 
Scherer, shaking his head as he taps the fast-falling baro- 
meter at the hall-door, warns such of his guests as it may 
concern, of certainly approaching storm from the Jura 
mountains. All the time, however, the lake lies tranquil; 
the sky, save on that western horizon, looks blue and settled. 
And so, when the Lausanne steamer is duly telegraphed at 
the appointed hour, it comes to pass thatM. Scherer is pro- 
nounced a false prophet, and that the moon- worshipers with 
Mrs. Skelton and her daughters as commanders-in-chief, 
get under way. 

A quarter of an hour later Joyce Dormer and her mother 
are waiting on the little Clarens jetty while Longmore 
brings round his boat. The banks of western cloud have 
become more and more copper-colored. The lake glows 
like one vast mirror of burnished steel. The stillness is a 
thing to be felt. 

‘‘ AVe ought to have listened to our landlord, remarks 
Mrs. Dormer, whose face has lost its smiles. ‘‘It might 
be amusing to tease poor John Farintyre by the threat of 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


67 


starting, but there is such a thing as carrying a practical 
joke too far. Our wisest course now is to turn back while 
we can. Madness to think of going on the water at such 
an hour, and with such a sky over our heads adds Mrs. 
Dormer, with a shudder. 

She possesses, I should say, as much stout courage as any 
woman of her weight in Europe. Ask lawyers, with whom 
at odd times she has had to deal, ask creditors, ask society 
at large and her husband^s family in committee, if little 
Mrs. Dormer can not display nerve on occasion. 

The wilder moods of nature interest her moderately. 
Storms, theories of storms, may have, like glaciers, to be 
studied for conversational purposes. But are not all such 
subjects better got up out of a science text-book than 
from experience? Mrs. Dormer, in short, has not one 
poetic fiber belonging to her. In fairness, it may be added 
that, even on a lake, Mrs. Dormer is liable to seasickness. 
‘‘If this is madness, who would choose to be sane?^^ ex- 
claims Jovce. “The sky is simply glorious, mother, all 
the more so for its uncertain j)romise. Look at those black 
and amber streaks along Jura! Look at the moon above 
those masses of dappled marble cloud, at that solitary star 
shining over the Dent de Jaman! It is just the moment 
the German storm-song tells of — the moment when the 
Sturm-geist holds his breath before' bursting his chains 
asunder. 

Even as Joyce speaks, a moan sweeps across the surface 
of the lake. The willows along a neighboring embank- 
ment give a menacing shiver. There is a second^ s breath- 
less silence; and then — a long, low rattle of thunder 
reverberates from peak to peak, among the far-off mount- 
ains. 

“ Mr. Longmore, I make my appeal to you!^^ cries Mrs. 
Dormer, as Hugh Longmore pulls in sight, round the head 
of the little landing-place. “ In boating questions one 
really looks upon an Oxford or Cambridge man as infallU 
hie. Do you consider it perfectly safe for us to venture 
forth?^^ 

“ Perfectly safe interposes Joyce. “ My dear mother, 
for what human undertaking that is pleasant can perfect 
safety be guaranteed? We shall be in no greater danger 
than all the honest souls who have gone to Chillon before 
us in the steamer. 


68 ' 


A BALLROOM REPE]SrTAKCE. 


It will be a long time yet before tlie storm bursts^ if 
indeed it reaches this part of the lake at all/’ says Long- 
more evasively. 

He has been holding a not too auspicious weather talk 
with the Clarens boatmen, has received more warnings as 
to weather signals, streams and currents than his knowl- 
edge of patois Swiss-French enables him practically to 
grasp, 

In any case we may pull far enough out to see Chil- 
lon. The postscript is added in obedience to some mute 
command on Joyce^s face. Even if the badness of the 
weather sends us back at once. 

And if the lake is safe for a steamer, with thirty 
chartered sentimentalists on board, it ought to be safe for 
a rowing-boat with three, persists the giid, with admirable 
feminine casuistry. “ Our portmanteaus are packed. 
Stradivarius is labeled ^ Oomo.^ If a catastrophe happens, 
we shall have the satisfaction of leaving our possessions in 
good order. 

She steps lightly into the boat, then stretches back a 
hand to her mo therms aid. 

I am suffering from vertigo; I can not measure dis- 
tance,'’^ hesitates Mrs. Dormer, looking more and more un- 
comfortable. Morally, I am not a coward, as you know, 
Joyce, but to-night some bodily weakness must have over- 
taken me. I doubt if I could kee|) myself upright in the 
boat.-’^ 

Then remain contentedly on dry land, mother. Mr. 
Longmore and I will row out far enough to see — or to be 
able to say we have seen — Chillon by moonlight, alone.'’'’ 

And fate, not unkindly, often, in smoothing difficulties 
for the imprudent, gives an impetus in the direction where 
impetus is least required. The boat^s head touches the jetty, 
Joyce^s hand is still outheld, when Mme. Scherer, merOy 
and a brace of grandchildren, issue from a house not twenty 
paces distant. What can be simpler than for Mrs. Dormer 
to return to the hotel under their escort, leaving Joyce and 
Longmore, when they have had their glimpse of moonlit 
Chillon, to follow? 

If you would give a serious promise to take care of 
yourselves.'’^ Promptlyrecovering from her vertigo, Mrs. 
Dormer skips landward joyfully. “ I really think I shall 
put myself under Grandmamma Scherer^s wing. The 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


69 


babies walk slow — I dare say you will reach home before me. 
And Mr. Longmore, if he likes, can have some farewell 
music, while we pity the infatuated people exposed to the 
weather at Chillon. If you would give me a serious 
promise 

We give you a faithful promise,^^ cries Joyce, as Long- 
more, nothing loath, pushes the boat off from the jetty. 

There shall be no thunder-storm on Lake Geneva to-night 
— if we can help it.-" ’ 

And we will return when we have seen Chillon, says 
Hugh Longmore. You know, of course. Miss Dormer,^'' 
he adds, when two or three strokes have put a deep iron- 
blue gulf between themselves and the shore, that it will 
take an hour^s steady pulling before we come in sight of 
the castle? I feel it a matter of conscience to tell you.^^ 
^‘Conscience! I know that we inhabit the best of all 
possible worlds, answers Joyce Dormer, in her gayest 
voice. “ I know that the lake is like crystal — pray admire 
these jeweler^s-shop similes— the sky like marble and sap- 
phire. Let us enjoy ourselves while we can, Mr. Long- 
more. Conscience and thunder-storms will come upon us 
quickly enough, without our going one yard out of the way 
to meet them 


CHAPTEK YIII. 

LORD BYRON ISLE. 

For a time Miss Dormer^ s spirits continue higher than 
their wont. She jests, sings, draws her hand, with the 
physical momentary enjoyment of a child, through the ice- 
cold lake water; by and by she suggests so gravely that 
Longmore for a moment is deceived by her voice, that they 
shall land and look after the thirty steamboat sentimentalists 
when they reach Chillon. 

“ There can be no doubt poor Farintyre needs looking 
after, the lad answers, in the same tone. “ I saw Miss 
Aurora Skelton pinning a flower in his button-hole as they 
left the hotel; I saw, also, that the pair lingered long in the 
rear of the rest. Farintyre is innocent of the world ^s ways. 
He will be getting into an entanglement before he knows 
what he is about. 

“I do wish he would cries Joyce, clapping her wet 


70 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTAKCE. 


hands gleefully. It would be a situation, and that is just 
what we all need. This wandering hotel life is a fiat affair, 
absolutely deficient in dramatic points. But I am afraid 
one can not hope for anything so charming as that sensible 
John Farintyre should compromise himself. In the first 
place: — time is too short. Mr. Farintyre leaves Clarens to- 
morrow. In the second — a man must have imagination to 
get into that kind of trouble. Now, if it w^ere — donT be 
offended with me, Mr. Longmore — if it were you!^^ 

You think I am more wanting in common sense than 
Farintyre?'’^ 

As Longmore asks this question, he rests idly on his 
sculls, looking with a pleasure he does )iot seek to hide, at 
the girFs fair and sparkling face. 

I am afraid common sense is one of the subjects I am 
not at home in. The first evening I saw you on the ter- 
race — how many days ago is that? What, can it be only 
five days since you taught me where to look for Arcturus 
on the mountains, yonder? That first evening I certainly 
thought you in danger. I credited you with an unsafe 
amount of imagination.*^^ 

That first evening — ^when I listened, not knowing your 
name, as you played Oorelli^s ‘ Nativity. Afterward you 
gave me a lecture on old violins, do you recollect. Miss 
Dormer? We were interrupted just as you were beginning 
to tell me the story of your Stradivarius. ' ^ 

Miss DormeFs jewelerVshop simile holds good still. The 
lake is like crystal, the sky like marble and sapphire. But 
it would seem that to Miss Dormer herself, tliis best of all 
possible worlds has of a sudden grown gray and overclouded. 
Youth, brightness, bloom, have died out from her face. 
Her lips have fallen into their most unsmiling expression. 
No sound is there for a minute^s space, but the drip of 
Longmore^s suspended sculls, and a vague inarticulate 
murmuring from the hither shore. Lake Leman — the 
frail boat ever drifting further away among its currents — 
lies darkly, unnaturally motionless. 

‘‘ Stradivarius came into my possession more than two 
years ago, with a visible effort Joyce Dormer at last begins. 

^ ^ It was a birthday present, given to me on the day I was 
eighteen. I have already told you, Mr. Longmore, that at 
that time we had a friend — who would have done his best, 
I think, to obtain the planet Mars, had I cried for it, such 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


71 


a friend as people do not meet with twice in their life, let 
them be ever so lucky. Well, two or three weeks before 
my birthday, I was asked to choose a gift — one that should 
be costly, hard to come by, and that I would prize, irre- 
spective of the giver, for its own sake. Diamonds and 
pearls and filigrees I would have none of. The worst peo- 
ple,^'’ observes the girl, emphatically, have some one virt- 
ue in their composition. I am not mercenary, in little 
things. 

In little things repeats Longmore with a certain jar 
of feeling that he might find it hard to account for. 

In those days, at least, I was not mercenary. But I 
have lived a great deal since. I have had more than my 
share of experience. You must not run away with the idea 
that I am a simple kind of girl. I am a woman with a 
past. Well, I looked round the London shop- windows. I 
exercised my imagination; I appealed even to my mother. 
In vain: I was so rich in myself! The world, it seemed, 
held nothing that could add to my happiness. 

Joyce Dormer ^s eyes are suffused, her face kindles with a 
passion of which, until to-night, yomig Longmore had not 
believed it capable. 

This story of Stradivarius, told, with no audience save 
himself, and with tfie poetry of lake and mountain and 
coming storm as adj uncts, begins to affect him — vicarious- 
ly, of course. 

At last I fell back on the dream of my whole life — a 
Cremona. After a fashion, I had played the violin from 
the time I was six years old. Here was something costly, 
with a vengeance, something hard to come by, and that I 
should dearly prize for its own sake. I made my choice, 
and on the morning of my eighteenth birthday the Stradi- 
varius you know, bought in Vienna at I dare not say what 
price, was put into my hands. 

Your friend must have been a rich man,^^ says Long- 
more, narrowly watching Miss Dormer's pure and limpid 
face. ‘‘ One hears of these Cremona violins selling for five 
or six hundred guineas.'’-’ 

“ If Stradivarius were worth a thousand guineas or a few 
shillings, it would be the same to me,'’-’ cries Joyce. I 
shall never part from my violin while I live — perhaps be- 
cause I am parted forever from the donor. Guineas! Why 
one would no more reckon up the price of one^s soul than 


72 


A BALLROOM REPEJ^TAKCE. 


think of the market value of Stradivarius. ‘ Stained 
through and through/ as the ^ Autocrat ^ says, ^ with the 
concentrated tones and sweetness of all the harmonies 
wl]^h have kindled and faded on its strings. 

Her speech is modulated by rich and sorrowful feeling. 
Bending her head low, she gazes intently down into the 
transparent water. A woman with a past. The moods, 
then, the gravity, the weariness of this girl of twenty are 
rooted in experience of which she had had more than her 
share! And the boat drifts on~on, into deadliest peril, for 
Xiongmore, absorbed wholly in his companion and in the 
half-confidence she had made to him, rests inactive, still, 
upon his sculls. 

Miss Dormer^ s voice recalls him with a start from specu- 
lation to reality 

If nineteenth-century miracles were possible, I should 
say that a miracle was taking place now. You have not 
been rowing for the last ten minutes, Mr. Longniore, have 
you? Well, look behind; see the distance we have drifted. 
W/ia^ is it that bears us away from the shore with such 
weird swiftness? 

Ifc is the strong back current of the lake toward the Ehone 
valley — the current that has hurried so many victims to a 
blue and fathomless sleeping-place. In an instant young 
Longmore^s hands grip tighter hold of the sculls; with very 
might he makes a few fruitless efforts at backing water, and 
then — the boatmen^ s warnings and the gravity of the situa- 
tion bursts upon him. 

If the weather remains calm, as it has been for days past, 
he knows the extent of the peril. Let the boat only fioat 
with the current as far as Villeneuve, and the worst will be 
over. A couple of hours^ steady sculling close to shore will 
bring them back to Olarens. But the sky, during the past 
quarter of an hour has turned black; the moon shines cold 
and wan from behind the mass of cloud that threatens in- 
stantly to overwhelm her; a tremulous, uneasy motion of 
the boat tells that the storm is already agitating the western 
portion of the lake. 

“ Well,^^ asks Joyce Dormer with tolerable self-com- 
mand, what is the meaning of it all? Do not be afraid 
to speak out. Why do we go at this extraordinary rate 
with no outward or visible means of locomotion? Why — 

A blaze of lightning irradiates mountain, ^v illages, and 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTANCE. 


73 


lake with fierce effulgence. The question dies on Joyce 
lips. Ere she can recover her breath comes such thunder as 
only the meeting of mountain clouds engender, and mount- 
ain crags echo back. There is a lull, resembling in its 
sickening intensity some moments of keenest moral suspense 
— two or three seconds later the rain and wind in hurri- 
canes are upon them! A rough tarpaulin has been left 
under a seat by one of the boatmen. This, with exceeding 
difficulty, Longmore draws around his companion's shoul- 
ders. And then facing each other still — Eor Joyce holds 
mechanically to the rudder, he to his sculls — they crouch 
and await their fate. 

The storm has burst so suddenly that neither of them, 
j)erhaps, at first can grasp the full awfulness of their jDOsi- 
tion. Five minutes ago they were gliding over a sea of 
glass, talking in soft whispers, transported into youth^s fairy- 
land of romance, sweet in its very bitterness. And now — 
no, the prospect of danger and of death must be dwelt upon 
longer than this ere it can be realized! 

Poor little mother !^^ so Joyce exclaims at last with all 
the energy she can command. ‘‘ Mr. Longmore, should 
you think the, storm is as wild at Hotel Scherer as here?^^ 

But Longmore answers not, hears her not. "The voice of 
a cannon were, indeed, scarce distinguishable amidst the tu- 
mult of sound, the Babel of every angry element at once, 
that rages around them. Their boat, a broad-built little 
lake craft, holds her own stoutly, but each surmounted 
wave, Hugh Longmore too truly knows, may be the last. 
Accident, a succession of accidents, has alone kept them, 
up to this, from shipwreck. And the storm has not reached 
its height, the lake has not risen to its full fury. Estimat- 
ing roughly the length of time that has passed since they 
left Clarens, he judges that they must be about midway be- 
tween the shores, cut off from all possibility of help. A 
life-boat exists at Vevey, manned by a stalwart crew and a 
brave one. But Vevey is miles away. Mortal heart knows 
not of their danger, and unless rescue come in the next 
quarter of an hour, they perish! 

AVith the condensed retrospective memory of a man dy- 
ing by violent death, young Longmore goes back over his 
twenty-two years of life. A thousand little incidents make 
his AVinchester school-days, his Oxford terms, aj^pear be- 
fore him in a flash. He looks forward to that final exami- 


74 


A BALLROOM REPEl^TAKCE. 


nation in jurisprudence (honors) which he will certainly 
mt pass. He knows a brief, exceeding bitter pang, re- 
membering the country parsonage that a short paragraph 
in the Times may render desolate. And then —he thinks 
only of his companion, the girl whom, after a week^s ac- 
quaintance, he has come so near to loving, and to whom 
death, not life, shall unite him! 

lie bends forward, and during a moment^ s break in the 
tempest, speaks so that Miss Dormer can hear. Is she veiy 
cold: very wet? Is there anything he can do for her? 

In real life, even at its supremest moments, men^s speech 
is so much tamer than their feelings, so seldom rises from 
the monosyllables of Saxon commonplace to the dignified 
periods of the drama! 

Do for me?^^ echoes Joyce, and, keenly listening for 
her reply, Longmore detects a sound like laughter beneath 
the tarpaulin. Well, yes. Keep me from drowning, if 
you can.^.^^ Then, almost in the same breath, Look! there 
is the shore; there are trees just ahead of us,^^ she cries, 
in a voice wild and broken with excitement. There! — in 

that last flash of lightning I saw the outlines plainly. Great 
Heaven! We are close upon it. We are lost!^'’ 

The boat, as she speaks, eddies round as a leaf might 
eddy in a whirlwind, under the influence of some new o'p- 
posing force, then, with one wild shock, is flung broadside 
upon terra firma. For a few seconds Joyce Dormer loses 
consciousness — such, at least, in attemjDting to picture the 
scene afterward, is the outcome of her confused recollection. 
With the dawn of returning sensation, she realizes that she 
is on dry land; stunned, giddy, surrounded still by the 
spray of surging waves, but with a pair of strong arms hold- 
ing her tight, with solid ground, not a frail and swaying 
plank, beneath her feet. 

Where am I?^^ she utters faintly. Are we on shore? 
Have we got safely back to Olarens?^^ 

We are on shore, Longmore answers; but, I am 
afraid, far enough away from Olarens! The boat ran 
aground for a few seconds, he adds, still holding her 
closely to his side, and by some desperate turn of luck we 
struggled, both of us, through the surf. 

x\nd we shall return to my mother the moment the 
storm lessens? Listen! The thunder is growing more dis- 
tant, is it not? In another few minutes we will start — on 


A BALLKOOM REPENTAKCE. 75 

foot, of course. We will not trust ourselves to the tender 
mercies of the lake again to-nighf ^ 

"No reply is needed from Longmore. At this instant a 
flash of lightning, longer, more lurid than any of the pre- 
ceding ones, gives the vividly significant answer of facts to 
Joyce^s question. 

The scene of their shipwreck is the little isle of Byron"? 
jDrisoner, a small patch of lake-girt land immediately oppo- 
site the embouchure of the Ehone; the little isle whose 

three tall trees "" are groaning, as if in agony, uncler the 
storm, and across whose narrow confines the surf and sjDray 
are dashing with dangerous strength. 

Blacker than ever has grown the moonless sky, fiercer the 
wind. No friendly light from village or beacon-tower is to 
be descried along the dimly visible shore. 

I call this charming!"" exclaims Joyce, when two or 
three breathless minutes have gone by. ‘‘All my life I 
have been longing for one good, solid, genuine adventure. 
I’have got my desire at last. So this is shipwreck. "" Her 
teeth chatter with cold as she speaks. “ Have not one"s 
clothes a queer, heavy. Ancient Mariner sensation about 
them? We must be nearly wet through. "" 

Nearly! They are as honestly drenched as though they 
had been to the bottom of the lake. In the struggle of 
making good their landing, the supreme struggle in which 
Longmore had to fight for two lives at once, the boatman"s 
tarpaulin was carried, with the boat, away. Not an inch, 
not the possibility of an inch of shelter, is between them 
and the skies. 

“ If one had to brave it for half an hour, it would be 
nothing,"" says the lad miserably. “ But we may have t- 
pass hours here before we can be picked up. Miss Dorniei , 
what have I led you into? How will you ever be able to 
pull through such a night as this?"" 

“ Don"t miake the worst of things, Mr. Longmore,"" is 
Joyce"s prompt answer. “One feels chillier than is com- 
fortable perhaps, and heavy. I can hardly bear my own 
weight. Otherwise there is not much to complain of. The 
life-boat people at Yevey will hear from Monsieur Scherer 
that we are abroad^ There is no fear as to our being found 
eventually. "" 

“ If I could only shield you from the rain, meanwhile!"" 

He stands between her and the storm; he takes off his 


76 A BALLKOOM REPENTANCE. 

jacket, fortunately of thick j)ilot cloth, and buttons it round 
her shoulders; then strives to bring life into her death-cold 
hands by chafing them between his own. 

And tho fury of the night waxes fiercer, the lightning 
becomes incessant. A stifling sulphurous smell is in the air. 

Of himself, stout English lad that he is, young Longmore 
thinks nothing; but Joyce — will the delicately nurtured, 
fragile girl ever live through the hours between this and 
dawn? He stoops, afraid lest she be losing consciousness, 
and whispers — the first futile question that comes to his 
lips: What is she thinking of 

was thinking,^ ^ says Joyce in her quiet, cadenced 
voice, how opportune it was of Lord Byron to invent this 
island. But for the poet, Mr. Longmore, where would you 
and I be now?^^ 

And you are not extremely wretched, not in actual 
suffering?^’ persists Longmore. I feel so horribly guilty 
of all this! If you would only say — in spite of himself, ,a 
foolish, half-tender shyness infuses itself into his voice — 
that you forgive me!^^ 

I have to thank you for the two best things I have got 
out of Switzerland,^^ says Joyce. First — incline your ear 

a little closer — first, for our moonlight dingle, where the 
wild thyme grew, and now for our magnificent shipwreck. 
This is the very stuff inspiration is made of A crash of 
louder thunder rives the air as she speaks, followed, after a 
second ^s pause, by lightning forked and sheet, intermingled 
in one wild blaze. This makes one appreciate Wagner ^s 
Donner und Blitzen music, does it not — makes one think of 
Weberns great overture more respectfully? Listen to the 
moaning of the lake! Hear how the ^ three trees ^ wail, as 
though they were sorry for our plight. Oh, this is grand! 
One knows now how Beethoven came to write the Prisoners^ 
Chorus in ‘ Fidelio. ^ 

And in the intense electric whiteness of the moment, 
Longmore sees her face distinctly. The sensitive, mobile 
features are aglow with feeling; warmth has returned to 
her cheeks; a fire of sweet, perfectly natural enthusiasm is 
in her blue eyes. At this moment J oyce Dormer is an art- 
ist, filled with an aHist^s self-forgetfulness. She remem- 
bers neither her present companion, nor her absent suitor, 
no, nor the ever-present sense of lost happiness which, 
walking with her, hand iu hand, is the shadow of her young 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAITCE. 


77 


life! Beethoven^s giant outcry^ that chorus in Ficlelio 
into which the sufferings of our whole race seem crushed — 
she can hear the like of this in winds and waves and thun- 
der; can feel, girl though she be, that an hour may come 
when she, in her weakness, shall, like the master in his 
strength, give adequate utterance to the pent-up emotion of 
years, and that the world shall say: This is Art! 

But Hugh Longmore misjudges her. 

Hugh Longmore, it may be urged in his justification, 
is twenty-two years of age, unversed in the world^s ways, 
ignorant of the sharp, thin line that divides friendship from 
sentiment, and both from love. He sees the warming 
cheek, the parted lips, the blue eyes sweetly fired! A wild, 
a desperate hope seizes his heart, and he whispers words 
that to this hour burn him with humiliation, even in the 
retrospect. 

I can not hear a syllable, cries Joyce. Hid ever man 
receive so sincere, so unconscious a rebuff! Please let 
me answer when I have got 'my wits more about me.^^ Of 
a truth, she is in a land far distant from this outward and 
visible one, is listening to messages too subtle even for 
lovers^ language — messages that in her excited brain are 
forming themselves into wild, unearthly music. DonT 
think me uncivil, Mr. Longmore — for the first time in my 
life I feel original — I have got hold of a motif! Oh, if we 
had only put a pencil and a sheet of scored paper in our 
pockets !^^ 


CHAPTER IX. 

JOH^r FARIKTYRE RISES TO DIGillTY. 

Wheist youth lingers abnormally long on the face of man 
or woman, you may theorize, pretty surely, as to the rela- 
tive amount of feeling that accompanies it. Are not love 
and love’s anxieties the tools that carve out hollows around 
too fond eyes, and delve unseemly parallels on cheeks and 
foreheads? 

Little Mrs. Dormer at nine-and-thirty looks a girl. 
Without malice, it may be said that little Mrs. Dormer 
never makes more of trouble than is picturesquely needful, 
never, under any conditions, goes forth to meet the thing 
that is unpleasant on the ]-oad. 


78 - 


A BALLKOOM KEPEISTTAKCE. 


During her daughter’s childish ailments — and twice or 
thrice Joyce’s small feet came near to entering the dark 
portals — Mrs. Dormer was ever ready, with or without a 
change of symptom, to accept such optimist hopes as doc- 
tors and nurses held forth to her. During the bitter love- 
sorrow of the girl’s maturer years, Mrs. Dormer felt it a 
moral obligation to go to dinners and dances and operas 
keep our places, in this all-forgetting London, open,” 
she used to say, with a moistened eyelash), until such time 
as Joyce’s stricken heart should win its way back to health. 

She does not forsake her standard of duty to-night. Ee- 
gretahle doubtless, for convention’s sake, that one of these 
mountain storms should burst at the time when Joyce, un- 
cha2)eroned, had rowed a few hundred yards forth on the 
lake to see Chillon. But there is no cause whatever for 
grave anxiety — so M. Scherer, smooth smiles around his 
Swiss lips, and dire forebodings in his Swiss soul, assures 
her. The dread is, that Joyce may be delayed longer than 
John Farintyre, with whom it were unwise just now to risk 
serious misunderstanding, might think proper. Social 
rupture, however trivial or serious, was never mended by 
brooding over it beforehand. If reconciliation be needed 
when these hot-headed young people return, Mrs. Dormer, 
you may be sure, will come to the fore, with all the tact 
that knowledge of their weakness and of her own strength 
can engender. And in the meantime — 

In the meantime, she draws the curtains of her salon, 
lights her reading-lamp, arranges lamp and books cozily on 
a low table beside the sofa, and settles down to the latest 
positivist philosophy as set forth in the current number of 
the Bi-monthly!” 

So things go on, rose-colored theories still tenable, for 
half an hour or more. Then the storm, that hitherto has 
swept obliq uely over Clarens, circles back round the eastern 
head of the lake, after the manner of Lake Leman storms, 
with the strength of a cyclone. The lightnings blaze until 
reading-lamps seem useless and positive philosophy dark; 
thunder rolls; winds roar; slates fly. There comes a crash, 
a fall, and then a hurried cry that one of the hotel out- 
buildings has fallen. Finally, at the very zenith of confu- 
sion — waiters rushing this way and that, servant- women 
wringing their hands, small children and Swiss grand- 
mammas screaming on upstairs floors — in walk the storm- 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


79 

beaten sentimentalists, John Parintyre at their head, from 
Chillon. But no Hugh Longmore — waiting, by this time 
•with a quickened pulse, on the stairs, Mrs. Dormer is forced 
to swallow the unwelcome truth — no Hugh Longmore; no 
Joyce. 

Mrs. Scipio Leonidas is in loud hysterics (a waxen-faced 
Shelley-like partner lost somewhere on the road). Her do 
the hall-porter^ s strong arms bear, nolens nolens, off the 
scener The Skelton family is in worse plight still. The 
Skelton family, to use a phrase common in haberdashery, 
^^does not wash. The veteran^s penciled eyebrows have 
dissolved, gone from her lips is the summer bloom, the 
w’^arranted smile gleams corpse-like. And her daughters? 
Ah I if the great Thoreau could see them! Her daughters^ 
complexions are in a putty, their spirits at zero, their voices 
hollow. Has not Joyce Do micros suitor been grim, ab- 
sent, unsmiling, the one moral element needed to crown 
the general fiasco! Limp, draggled, discomfited, these 
ladies take refuge, with what speed they may, in the 
sanctuary of their own apartments, and upon Mr. John 
Parintyre devolves the telling of the tale. 

Scarcely had the excursion steamer started, before the 
captain, tardily weather-wise, declared his intention of get- 
ting on to Villeneuve for the night. The party from 
Hotel Scherer were put ashore at Chillon, with injunctions 
to return, as the nature of their tickets permitted them to 
do, by rail. But the last train to Lausanne had already 
passed ere they reached the station. Not a vehicle, in face 
of the coming storm, was to be hired. And the sentimen- 
talists, unless they would spend the night at Chillon, had 
no choice but to make their way back through rain and 
tempest on foot, arriving in such sorry condition as we have 
seen. 

^ * In short, you who stayed behind have had the best of 
it,^^ concludes Parintyre, turning morosely on Mrs. Dor- 
mer, who has met him at the entrance of the hall. I 
can fancy how you and Miss Dormer, and that yo2mg Long- 
more, have been making merry at our expense. 

I — I am looking for Joyce^s return at every minute. 
Mrs. Dormer falters this, turning very white. I had 
hoped to see Joyce come back with the rest, but — 

Further explanation is cut short by M. Scherer, who 
comes up suavely, rubbing his hands, the professional 


80 


A BALLROOM REPENTAisX'E. 


Swiss smile round his mouth, and with a new source of 
ho23eful consolation to otfer to Mrs. Dormer. 

M. Scherer has this moment received a telegram from 
Vevey. Sympathizing in the parental anxiety of madame, 
he dispatched a messenger thither more than an hour 
since, and learns that the life-boat put forth at the first 
threaten! ngs of storm. On such a night as this the life- 
boat^s crew will row straight away toward the embouchure 
of the Rhone, picking up, we may feel certain, whatever 
unwary strangers shall unfortunately be still upon the 
lake. Madame need be under no fear with the Vevey life- 
boat afloat (but M. Scherer has children of his own; liis 
thin lips falter as he speaks). With the life-boat afloat 
there is not the smallest little doubt in the world about the 
safety of cette cliere mademoiselle and of the young English 
gentleman who accompanied her. 

A life-boat certainly does give one a sense of security, 
observes Mrs. Dormer, raising her soft eyes, floating in 
tears, to John Farintyre. ‘‘ Life-boats are manned by 
such magnificent fellows always, are they not? And — 
and — 

She breaks off short, scared by a certain fixed look upon 
her prospective son-in-law^ s face. 

Mr. Hugh Longmore, I assume, is the young English 
gentlemau?^^ For once in his life, John Farintyre almost 
rises to dignity. Cette cliere mademoiselle is not spending 
the night abroad without a companion ?^^ 

And Mrs. Dormer knows that her position is a critical 
one. 

She is not cruelly perturbed about Joyce^s exposure to 
the storm, as a weaker or a stronger woman might well be. 
Why torture one^s self with vain nervousness, when a land- 
lord who understands the country, the climate, aud the 
Vevey life-boat, gives a positive assurance that everything 
will come right in the end? 

But she is shaken to the inmost fiber of her being by this 
fixed expression, this index of resolution already formed, 
‘that she can decipher on Farintyre^ s face. 

— am not strong enough for such anxiety. Joyce — 
my child — come back to me — 

Thus cries Mrs. Dormer, moved by an inspiration of that 
genius which is the most graceful substitute society offers 
for real feeling. Then, stretching forth a pair of w^hite^ 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


81 


appealing hands, she faints away, with the loveliest de- 
corum — with Monsieur, Madame, and Grandmere Scherer 
lookmg on, respectfully sympathetic— into John Farin- 
tyi’e^s arms. 


CHAPTER X. 

ETHER. 

And so, when Joyce and Longmore do at length return, 
when — drenched hero and heroine of the hour — they have 
gone through an ovation from hosts, hall-porters, servants, 
guests, and find themselves outside the door of Mrs. Dor- 
meFs salon, it comes to pass that the fumes of ether greet 
them. 

And Joyce^s heart turns cold! 

At many an important turning-point in her young lifers 
journey, ether has been made to play a leading and success- 
ful part. Once, notably, on a breezy day, when her father 
— lawyers present — decided in black and white what settle- 
ment he should annually make upon the wife from whom 
the exigencies of bronchitis and hric-a-'hrac divided him; 
once again, years later, when the cruel letter was composed 
and dispatched that broke forever with Roger Tryan. 
With forebodings, all the keener, probably, by reason of 
her overwrought bodily state, the girFs heart informs her 
that ether will be successful now. 

“ It is best for us to say good-night, Mr. Longmore."^^ 
Pausing at the half-opened door, she gives the young 
Oxonian her frozen hand. But for you I should be at 
the bottom of the lake. Well, if by to-morrow morning I 
find the taste of living sweet again, I shall be able to thank 
you more heartily. Xow, I must think only of my 
mother. 

She walks into the salon, feverish, poor child, from ex- 
haustion, her clothes dripping, her hair disordered, her 
blue eyes wild and pale, to find — this picture : 

A reading-lamp, becomingly softened by a porcelain 
shade; the current number of the Bi-monthly, turned 
face-downward on a table; a white shawl; cushions; a 
pretty dimpled hand holding a morsel of cambric to a mor- 
sel of a nose and — ether! To these details, Mr. John Far- 
intyre, pacing up and down the room with much the gait 


82 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


and amiability of a ca^ed bear, forms an effective back- 
ground. 

A feeble: Well, Joyce in the tone the girl knows 
too well, proceeds from Mrs. Dormer; and, in a moment, 
Joyce, on her knees, is at her mother ^s side. 

Mamma, poor dear mamma. She covers Mrs. Dor- 
mer^s warm little hand with repentant kisses. I am 
more sorry than I can say to have caused you such anxiety. 
Oh, mother, you must indeed have gone through a terrible 
time. 

Mrs. Dormer, it would seem, does not notice her daugh- 
ter's pallor, the weariness of her eye, the cold and stiffened 
condition of her drenched garments. Mrs. Dormer lays a 
hand on the approximate region of her own heart. In an 
almost inaudible voice, she murmurs a word or two about 

palpitations.^^ She gives a glance at the dark, bear-like 
figure of John Farintyre. 

Another escapade like this will be the death of me. 
You know, Joyce, every one knows, how feeble the action 
of my heart is; how all the doctors have bidden me avoid 
strong emotion as I would avoid poison. 

Never surely was patient more obedient to physician^s 
orders! 

Escapade — is this my welcome?’^ cries Joyce, and 
shrinking away, she rises instantly to her feet. Alas! the 
moment^s keen disappointment is no new experience for 
her. Since she was four years old, it has been a familiar 
one whenever she has most lavished generous love or gener- 
ous confidence on Mrs. Dormer. I started with Mr. 
Longmore, as you know, mamma, almost by your own pro- 
posal, to get a moonlight view of Chillon. The storm 
came on too suddenly for us to return to shore, and but for 
Mr. Longmore ^s skill and courage, we must have been lost. 
An escapade! You do not think I have stayed out on such 
a night, in such a condition as this,^^ extending an arm 
from which the water literally streams, for ^Dleasurer^^ 

And where, may I ask Miss Dormer, were you and the 
courageous Longmore lucky enough to find shelter ex- 
claims Farintyre, brusquely pausing in his walk. No 
business of mine to inquire, you will say, perhaps. I think 
it is my business, for another half hour at all events, to in- 
quire into, everything that concerns Miss Joyce Dormer's 
good name. 


A BALLEOOM KEPEKTAKCE. 


83 


For a second or two Joyce looks at him as though the 
meaning of his speech failed to reach her. Then she turns 
indignantly away. Crimson flows the blood over her warm, 
sunken cheeks. 

Mother, am I forced to listen to such a reproach as 
this? I went out on the lake by your approval, and in ex- 
cellent charge. Our boat drifted into one of the back cur- 
rents of the Rhone before we knew our danger, and then 
the storm burst, suddenly, and but for a miracle we must 
have been lost — 

“ A miracle, or Mr. Hugh Longmore?^^ Farintyre inter- 
poses the question, not too graciously. 

You know Lord Byroads Island, opposite Yilleneuve, 
mamma? On that tiny speck of ground, thanks to Mr. 
Longmore^s gallant courage, we made good our landing. 
There we remained, our boat gone, without shelter, numbed, 
drenched, until those fine life-boat men — yes,^^ with a look 
of fierce disgust at John Farintyre, with an involuntary 
clinching of her cold hand, men as gentle as they were 
brave, saved us — straight, it seems to me now, out of the 
jaws of death. And then, coming home to you, mother, 
rescued, one hears such paltry talk as this of ^ good name!^ 
Oh, if you loved me, sir,^-^ and she turns again toward Far- 
intyre, aglow of eloquent anger on her young face, ‘^if 
you loved me—and I know what I say, I know what love is 
— you would be so glad to see me safe, there would be no 
ix)om in your mind for paltrier feelings. 

A lover standing on Joyce DormeFs level, mentally, 
would, I think, make answer by taking her, faults and all, 
to his heart. For he would understand her. John Farin- 
tyre — no exceptionally black Othello, but commonplace, 
through and through — John Farintyre feels himself at once 
injured and unmoved. 

“ Tall talk is above my head. Never was good at acting 
— private theatricals and charades, and — and that sort of 
thing. And you are. Oh, it’s no good smoothing matters 
over, Mrs. Dormer.” For here poor Mrs. Dormer strug- 
gles to edge in a conciliatory word. I can’t hold a can- 
dle to Miss Dormer in the way of cleverness, leave that to 
more fortunate men than ihyself ! But I have my notions of 
what is, and what is not the correct thing for a girl to do. 
And I believe I have the honor of looking forward, some 
day, to becoming Miss Dormer’s husband. And, by 


84 


A BALLEOOM KEPENTAiTCE. 


George he goes on, gradually lashing himself to fury 
with his own powers of invective, Fll stand no more of 
this sort of work, engaged or married. You can break the 
whole thing off, or not, just as you choose. But if you 
keep to me at all, you shall obey me. You hear, obey 
And with a couple of strides, Mr. Farintyre has crossed 
the room; the murderous, crushing grasp of his heavy 
fingers encircles Joyce^s wrist. 

And now, if never in her life before, does Mrs. Dormer, 
practically show how great a role ether can be made to fill 
in the drama of human lives. 

Contempt, disgust, righteous indignation are struggling 
for mastery on Joyce^s face; mistrust, that it needs but a 
breath to kindle into open revolt, is on the face of John 
Farintyre. Another half minute and words beyond all re- 
call would probably part these two ill-suited people forever, 
did not little Mrs. Dormer rise mistress of the situation. 

My heart she moans, stretching out her hand to the 
ether bottle, which in her agitation, or her agony, she 
oversets. ‘‘ I — I feel this painful excitement is too much 
for me. Mr. Farintyre — pardon — ^ ^ 

And then, for the second time on this miserably fateful 
evening, she loses consciousness. 

One does not care to dwell overmuch on the scene that 
follows. It is long ere Mrs. Dormer recovers from her 
state of fainting — I feel in doubt as to the fittest spell iiig of 
this word! When, at length, she speaks again, Joyce, 
partly influenced by the fumes of ether, partly by sheer 
bodily weariness, has reached a helpless shivering condition 
in which she would probably answer ‘‘ yes,^^ were the sug- 
gestion made of leading her to instant execution. 

The mischief arose from want of thought. My darling 
girl has caused me this wretchedness unintentionally,^^ mur- 
murs Mrs. Dormer, taking up the thread of her ideas with 
singular clearness for one newly returned out of the dark 
know-nothing world of syncope. ^‘And you, dear Mr. 
Farintyre, will forgive, will you not, as all of us must hope 
to be forgiven? 

If Joyce chooses to shake hands over it all, things may 
go on smoother for the future than they have ever done. 
Farintyre^s tone is that of a man who recognizes the gen- 
erosity of his own conduct. “ I doiFt think I stipulate 
for anything extraordinary/^ he adds, with a tentative side 


85 


A BALLROOM REPElSTTAIs^CE. 

glance at Joyce^s face. Let the engagement be called an 
engagement. Let a fellow know what ground he stands 
upon — feel a little sure — 

You hear, Joyce/^ interrupts the fainting woman, rais- 
ing herself briskly, and fixing a pair of expressive eyes on 
her daughter’s face. ‘‘Mr. Farintyre asks only for the 
security to which he is entitled. Make me happy, child, 
after all I have been called upon to suffer this night. 
Give him your hand. 

Joyce Dormer stands mute, irresolute, sick at heart. 

“ If the thing is to be, I suppose one may as well cry 
Kismet!'’^ so, at last, she answers, with a kind of forced 
spirits, with pale and quivering lips. “ But I can not 
admit, mamma, of that word security. There shall be a 
loop-hole left. The engagement, as Mr. Farintyre wishes 
it, can be called an engagement — that is all. If either 
of us see fit to change between this and Easter it shall not 
be counted as falsehood. We are free, still. 

John Farintyre, it would seem, is satisfied. He takes 
possession of Joyce^s hand — she has not the strength, 
physical or moral, to withdraw it ! Then, emboldened by 
this negative consent, he draws her to him, and officially, 
here in her mother ^s presence, touches her cheek with his 
lips. 

J oyce Dormer feels that she will never get over the shame 
of that first, bartered, loveless kiss while she lives. 


CHAPTER XL 

CATS AKD RED CLOVER. 

But human souls, alas! the pity of it, do, perforce, get 
over everything. Our troubles kill themselves if they fail 
of killing us; and the registrar-general does not even make 
a return respecting the number of men and women who, 
in this nineteenth century, die in England from moral 
causes. With the definite prospect before her of becoming 
John Farintyre^s wife next Easter, Joyce Dormer must 
rise, go to rest, eat her meals, adjust a becoming fold, 
a soft-tinted knot of ribbon before her looking-glass, just 
as in the happy days when she had promised herself, with 
all her faults, and all her virtues, to the man she pas- 
sionately loved. 


86 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


During two short days — days^ who shall say of what 
secret, what wild rebellion — she keeps her room. 

My dear Joyce is sleeping off the effects of storm and 
shipwreck/^ her mother whispers, toward the close of 
Saturday, to Hugh Longmore. Mrs. Dormer has had the 
thoughtfulness to send for the young Oxonian — just to give 
him a hand-pressure, to bless him, dewy thankfulness in 
her soft, gray eyes, for his noble, heroic conduct of the 
previous night. I am not a friend in general to crys- 
tallized hell.-^^ Mrs. Dormer slides with grace over the 
monosyllable. After such a fright, such a wetting, how- 
ever, one felt that four-and-twenty hours^ sleep would be 
priceless, and Joyce was persuaded to take a small half- 
tea-spoonful of Hunter^s syrup. We have put off our de- 
parture until Monday morning, adds Mrs. Dormer cheer- 
fully, so my daughter will have ample time to say all the 
pretty things the situation requires, with her own lips, to 
Mr. Longmore.'’^ 

And, early on the morning of Monday, Longmore re- 
ceives a little three-cornered, pencil-written note — it seems 
to his imagination with some faint odor of wild thyme 
clinging around its folds — from Miss Dormer. 

He has, I need scarcely say, indulged in pretty frequent 
speculations on a certain interesting problem during 
the fifty-six hours since the shipwreck; the net result of 
such speculations being that he, Hugh Longmore, has 
tumbled, headlong and hopelessly, into love. Wisdom 
recommends an alibi: Get clear of Clarens,^'’ says the 
monitress; fiee from the blue eyes that have so effectually 
put common sense and peace of mind to fiight.'’^ And he 
has already determined to be wise, has looked up hours of 
departure in the train-bills, has commenced a rough and 
desultory packing of his Gladstone, when that three-cor- 
nered note, with its imaginary odor of wild thyme, is 
handed to him. 

Dear Mr. Longmore, — WA are to leave for Italy this 
evening. Mamma and I hope you will drink five-o’clock 
tea with us for the last time. If you would like some 
music, come round to our salon in the afternoon. Would 
three be too early? 


Joyce. ” 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 87 

It is a fine occasion for a man to display the philosophy 
that is in him. 

Wisdom, looking back upon Lord Byron^s Isle, and upon 
words uttered there in a moment of madness, recommends 
an alihL 

Joyce Dormer invites to five>o^clock tea. 

Young Hugh Longmore unpacks his boots and hair- 
brushes, and exactly as the Clarens clocks strike three, 
walk§ along the corridor — his heart most unphilosophically 
beating — that leads to Mrs. Dormer^’s salon. 

He finds Joyce alone at the piano, a complicated score 
before her,- which she is very evidently not studying. Her 
face looks pale and aged. As she rises, on Loiigmore^s 
entrance, her eyes meet his somewhat less frankly than 
their wont. 

'"You deserve all sorts of pretty speeches, Mr. Long- 
more. So she remarks, after the first stereotyped anx- 
ieties have been uttered and set at rest. " Some day, if I 
find that being alive is really sweet again, I will make 
them to you in a letter. My mother declares that if she 
had been rescued from destruction, she would write a whole 
book of sonnets and dedicate it to her preserver. But poor 
mamma thinks life so enjoyable! She credits all us worn- 
out people of a younger generation with having the same 
relish for it as herself. You have come early for some 
music, have you not?'’"’ 

Longmore has come early — that he may be as long as 
possible in Joyce Dormer ^s society. Sensible to this fact 
he gives his answer without hesitation. Yes. He has 
come early — for music. 

"You said once you would like to hear some of my poor 
compositions.-^^ Crossing to a table, Joyce takes out her 
Stradivarius from its case. " As mamma is still busy, 
packing, I will play you two little songs for the violin that 
I wrote long ago. The first is called ' In the Oampagna. ^ 
You must suppose it to be a morning of Eoman spring. 
Her face begins to color as she softly coaxes her instrument 
into tune. " The asphodel bloom is white, the myrtle in 
fresh foliage, the air full of violets. And a pair of foolish 
human beings are thinking, with beating hearts, that all 
the rest of life will be as happy as to-day. You under- 
stand?^^ 

" Too well, I am afraid. Miss Dormer. 


88 


A BALLROOM REPEISTTANCE. 


Philosophic though he he, Hugh Longmore^s answer is 
given with a marked strain of tenderness in its tone. 

don^'t know what music can really represent sun- 
shine, and violets, and foolish human dreams, as some 
fanatics of the Schumann school declare; anyhow, you know 
how I wish my poor little attempt to be interpreted. I am 
like little Mark Twain^s artist,^'’ adds the girl; her heaviness, 
it seems to Longmore, attempting to find relief in raillery. 

^ It is useless to disguise the fact from you any loi:iger,^ 
he tells the showman. ‘ These rocks in the foreground air 
horses.'’ Well, these sounds I am going to draw from my 
violin strings air asphodel blooms, blue-sky, and marble 
ruins — with a pair of exceedingly foolish young people 
dreaming in their midst. Wait a second or two, until I 
have resined my bow, and you shall hear.'’^ 

In the Oampagna is one of those simple songs with- 
out words, to which every kindred listener can supply the 
text in his own soul; a song of such human happiness as is 
born of young blood and warm skies, fiowing without 
effort, to pure and ringing harmony. As Longmore list- 
ens, as he watches the sweet, unstudied attitude, the 
hands, the lips of the girlish composer, he bethinks him, 
with a pang of what, after a seven days^ dream, the years 
are likely to be, without Joyce Dormer! How shall he, 
once having drunk of this divinest madness, turn back to 
common existence, common law? How take interest in 
Blackstone and Markby, in the litigations over wills or 
marriage settlements of Brown, Jones and Eobinson, while 
the one woman who could have turned lifer’s fiat prose to 
poetry, walks apart from him upon the face of the earth; 
likelier than not, as the wife of Mr. John Farintyre? 

It is full of faults, as a composition,^^ cries Joyce, 
when he has stumbled, with British awkwardness, through 
a few stiff praises. ‘‘ My life has not been ruled by my 
own ambitions, or I should have gone, when I was fifteen, 
to the Leipsic conservatorium to make music my study. 
As it is, I shall only be an amateur with a pretty taste, 
and tolerably dexterous fingers, to the last.^^ 

If the world contained a few more such amateurs. Miss 
Dormer 

‘‘ Mr. Longmore, you are trying to be complimentary. 
As a punishment, I shall play you my second song. I 
called tne first ‘ In the Oampagna,^ thinking of Browning^s 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


89 


^ Love among the Ruins/ I call this, ^ When Summer 
Dies/ from Keats^s line in ^ Endymion/ Our jDair of 
foolish lovers, you must imagine, are beginning to discern 
that April time and wind-blown asphodels and violet scents 
do not last forever/^ And speaking thus she plays again 
— a cantata with a wider sweep of meaning than the first, 
with a subtle wail of pain underlying the surface of joyous- 
ness of the centric melody. 

Hugh Longmore asks himself, with an absurdly keen 
twinge of jealousy, if experience so rich in passion can have 
been drawn actually from the girEs own life? Is the song 
inspired by a woman'’s remembrance or by an artistes 
prophecy? 

Joyce Dormer seems to guess his thoughts. 

^^My compositions have the trick of emotion about 
them, have they not?'’^ As she makes this somewhat cyn- 
ical remark she lays down her Stradivari us, fondly, gently, 
as though some invisible, vanished hand received it from 
her own. But I am afraid the trick is artificial, a thing 
one has learned, together with one^s fugue and counter- 
point, at so much an hour, from some German music-mas- 
ter. Shall I do better, I wonder, in the future? As we 
shivered under Lord Byron ^s three tall trees the other 
night, I told you that I had found a Diotif, It has seemed 
to me since that a picture of absolute loss and ruin, the 
shipwreck of two foolish lives that set out; amidst April 
sunshine and violet scents, would fitly end my trio of 
songs — 

The falsest art in the world, my dear! Never end any- 
thing with a shock Mis. Dormer, who has quietly en- 
tered, offers this advice. 

“An episode in minor occurs in most lives. Music 
should render it as an episode only. Shipwreck, absolute 
loss, whatever girls and boys may think at twenty, are of 
their nature, inartistic. As much thunder and lightning 
as you choose early in your work. Leave your hearers 
when you finish in a state of calm repose. People who 
commit irretrievable fiascos are only in their place on the 
boards of a transpontine theater. Mr. Longmore, how do 
you do? Quite sad to think how soon we must say good- 
bye! And you would like — -Joyce, darling, where is your 
violin — Mr. Longmore, no doubt, would like to hear you 
iJay for the last time in Hotel Scherer. ^ 


90 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


They play to him for nearly an hour bright and airy 
music, selected, doubtless, by Mrs. Dormer on artistic prin- 
ciple, the principle of making final impressions cheerful 
ones. But Joyce’s heart is not in her fingers this after- 
noon. It would seem that her eyes read other notes than 
those written on the score. The performance is spiritless. 
At five o’clock a waiter enters with tea, and Mrs. Dormer 
shuts the piano a little abruptly. 

We never played so badly in our lives. I forbid Mr. 
Longmore to aj^plaud. Where are your thoughts, my dear 
Joyce? In our half -packed portmanteaus or — ” 

My thoughts are with the people who commit irre- 
trievable fiascos,” answers Joyce. ‘‘ I was thinking neither 
of Gounod nor Berlioz, but of the episode in a minor key 
that has yet to be written; that episode which shall have for 
its title ‘ Shipwreck.’ ” 

Mrs. Dormer seats herself at the tea-table and begins 
talking about nothing with a persistent vivacity that dis- 
perses sentiment by force. Sad to leave this fresh, blue 
Switzerland behind, yet charming — if friends could only 
accompany one — to think that another twenty-four hours 
will see them in the land of Fata Morgana — on the south 
side of the x\lps. People go on existing in all the other 
countries of Europe. In Italy one lives! 

It is the kind of commonplace that carries with it a 
superficial ring of sincerity. But it is only a common- 
place. Who should know better than Mrs. Dormer that a 
pretty, agreeable little woman may go on existing,” quite 
as enjoyably in London or Paris as elsewhere? 

And you, Mr. Longmore, is there no remote chance of 
our seeing you in the South? We shall spend the remainder 
of the autumn at the Italian lakes; during winter we shall 
be in Nice. Those tyrannical doctors insist upon my 
breathing the air of the French Riviera until spring 
breaks.” (And the gayeties of the Nice season decline!) 

Easter will find us, as it finds most other vagabond En- 
glish people, in Rome. Joyce, my love,” and Mrs. Dormer 
says this with intentional meaning, we should be very 
pleased, should we not, if Mr. Longmore chanced to be in 
Rome next Easter?” 

Joyc3 is standing beside the window, her violin still be- 
tween her hands, her whole attitude one of nerveless dejec- 
tion. At the mention of her own name she starts round; 


A BALLROOM REPENTAl^CE. 


91 


then busies herself in packing away her Stradivarius in its 
case. 

I — I was sjoeaking of Italy/^ Mrs. Dormer repeats, 
discreetly leaving the question of next Easter alone. ‘ ‘ And 
do you know, my child, if we mean to start upon our jour- 
ney to-night we have not very much time to lose. Ma- 
dame Scherer says we ought to leave this house punctually 
at seven. What can John Farintyre be about 

John Farintyre is on the terrace, mother,^-’ cries Joyce 
Avith an air of mock alarm, and I don^t like the look of 
things. I hope nothing is about to happen to ahy of us, 
but these uncanny manifestations frighten me.-’^ Long- 
more can not but think that the girl Avhen she speaks thus 
is putting a force upon herself. The effort, if it be one, 
is, however, successful. To any but a solver of jDroblems, 
the artificial tone of banter might jDass for flow of spirits. 

John Farintyre has got a book in his hands. And that 
book is neither a yellow-back novel nor a ^ Cavendish, ^ 

Mr. Farint3rre has a strong natural taste for reading, 
observes Mrs. Dormer suavely. A taste rather unde- 
veloped perhaps at present, but quite certain to show itself 
in the future. I lent him a volume of Darwin this morn- 
ing, and he is simply wrapped up — lost in it! I am con- 
vinced John Farintyre would take the keenest interest in 
works of scientific research if he only allowed himself more 
time for study. 

And when young Croesus comes sauntering in, some 
minutes later, book in hand, with countenance more hope- 
lessly void of mind than usual, she, forthwith, begins to 
chatter Darwinism and Huxleyiana for his benefit. 

Full of tact, of cleverness, up to a certain level, there is 
one matter in which Mrs. Dormer is prone to err. She 
overrates the power possessed by Mrs. Dormer of molding 
men to her wishes. 

The great barrier, she honestly believes, between Joyce 
and Fa]»intyre is an intellectual one. Then John Farin- 
tyre ^s intellect must be cultivated. What, on the surface, 
can be easier? Make him skim over some nice popular 
little text-books of science, imbue him with the last sub- 
versive ideas in history, put a volume or two of erotic, 
mystic verse into his hands, and spice the whole with some 
well-translated German rationalism. To this, in due 
course, must be added the proper amount of feminine 


92 


A BALLKOOIVI REPEiv^TAN-CE. 


coaching; the coaching that teaches you how to find staple 
for conversation out of the slightest materials; to recognize 
the subjects on which you may safely assume the responsi- 
bility of an opinion; above all, to know when to be silent. 

If Mrs. Dormer could inspire an ignorant man with tJiaf 
knowledge, she would have cause to be proud, indeed, of 
her own powers! 

‘ ‘ The chapter I marked for you is deliciously suggestive, 
is it not? Mr. Longmore, I am sure, will remember it — 
the chapter in which Darwin gives instances of plants and 
animals, temote in the scale of nature, who are yet bound 
together by a web of complex relations? ' 

I am afraid the subject is out of my depth, says Hugh 
Longmore, with the repugnance sensible men feel to scien- 
tific prattle at the tea-table. 

It may be deep for you,^^ cries Farintyre aggressively. 

To me the whole thing seems as plain as a pike-staff if 
once you accept Darwiif s facts. Of course, he goes on, 
with the solemn complacency of dullness, one must start 
from some kind of premises, take something for granted. 
I do accept Darwin ^s premises. I believe in primitive 
germs. I am an out-and-out — what the deuce is the term? 
An out-and-out — 

Evolutionist, perhaps. 

As Joyce makes the suggestion, she bends her head down 
over her plate, and Longmore notices that her color deep- 
ens. 

She is beginning, already, to blush for Mr. John Farin- 
tyre. 

Now, there ^s the cats and the red clover. Youcouldn^t 
have a better proof of interdependence than that. Ordinary 
people, you know, Longmore, would not see any connection 
between the two. But the man of science can tell you bet- 
ter. There could never be much red clover about in a dis- 
trict where there were no cats. 

Indeed! How does the man of science make that out?’^ 
Hugh Longmore asks innocently, I am one of the ordi- 
nary people, are not you. Miss Dormer?^^ 

‘‘ An ordinary person, waiting for enlightenment,^^ says 
Joyce, looking pained. Mother, suppose you tell us more 
about these wonderful cats. 

But Mr. John Farintyre does not mean to have his story 
taken from him. 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


93 


The fact is, doiiT you know, it^s all because of the 
humble-bees. Clover wonT fertilize in any quantity in a 
district without humble-bees.^^ 

And Mr. John Farintyre helps himself, with an air of 
conviction, to bread and butter. 

‘^Eeally? As you come fresh from the fountain-head, 
we must accept the facts, remarks Longmore. ‘‘ But we 
have a right to ask that facts shall be explained. You can 
never have red clover in a district where there are no cats, 
because humble-bees are necessary for its fertilization ! I 
am more out of my depth than ever. 

— I^m quite positive Fm right, says Farintyre, 
growing hot and confused. Whereas the good of turning 
everything into an argument? The humble-bees determine 
the quantity of the red clover, and the cats — deuce take it, 
man! You canT expect me to have it all, chapter and 
verse — the cats of course, determine the quantity of the 
humble-bees.'’^ 

DonT you think we have omitted one important factor 
— the field-mice ask little Mrs. Dormer. 

Longmore looks across at Joyce. Her eyes are downcast, 
her delicate face is suffused from brow to chin. And he 
knows, as plainly as though the communication had been 
made to him in words, that John Farintyre is Miss Dormer ^s 
jDromised husband. 


CHAPTER XII. 

INTELLECTUAL COQUETRY. 

I CAN tell you one thing, my dear Rora/’ and Mr. 
Thomas Skelton, as he speaks, arranges his polished, point- 
ed boots in an atitude of graceful ease above the level of his 
head. Neither of the three Misses Skelton is looking 
younger. For Pansy there never was much hope. Our 
fond mamma destined her from infancy for the church, but 
churchmen, as far as I can see, look upon thick ankles and 
solid waists much in the same light as the rest of us. Diana 
might have done better; she was not a style I admire my- 
self,^'’ says Mr. Skelton, with an air of connoisseurship. 

Wiry, light-fieshed, plainish head, and a good deal more 
than enough of bone! Still among the small Eastern 
Counties^ squireens, Diana^’s were a style of looks that 


might have passed for breeding, if you had all had the sense 
to keep in England. Her day is over now. 

This brings it to me/^ observes Aurora blankly. I 
suppose, T. S., 3"ou will be saying next that I am an old 
maid?^^ 

T. S. glances round, languidly critical, at his younger 
sister^ s too rubicund charms. 

Aurora is dressed, as usual, like a caricature of some 
other caricature. Three rows of mock pearls are arranged, 
Grecian fashion, romid her head. She wears a peacock- 
hued pinafore with the singularly inappropriate motto, 
riiomme propose, worked in old English characters around 
the hem; bangles are about her wrists; beads about her 
throat; glaring knots of poppy-colored ribbon seem to have 
descended upon her whole person in a shower. 

You are not an old maid yet, my dear, but your state 
is cachectic — highly! You know Punches advice to unmar- 
ried persons, as a body? My advice to the three Misses 
Skelton is; whatever the suitor, and whatever his fortune: 
Do.^^ 

Mr. Thomas Skelton is a cadaverous, rather elderly young 
gentleman, holding the rank of lieutenant in one of her 
majesty^s foot regiments; a young gentleman beringed up 
to the knuckles, redolent of pretension. Ess bouquet, and 
tobacco-smoke, and who glories in knowing his own small 
world iii particular, and human nature in the aggregate, on 
the very seamiest side. Not to be done at cards, or about a 
horse, or a billiard match, is T. S. ; not to be deluded into 
believing in the honesty of man, far less of woman! In his 
mysterious theatrical information, his familiar stories of 
Lord A. or Viscount B. , and his straight tips for the big 
]-aces, Thomas Skelton is equally reliable. Sometimes he 
IS amusing; especially when in an ultra-boasting vein, or 
delivering scraps of what one may call curacoa-and-seltzer 
jDhilosojDhy at second-hand. Such men in his regiment as 
possess money or titles know him — to their cost. So, ac- 
cording to the Skelton family legends, do the higher circles 
of London society. Into these higher London circles we 
may not aspire to penetrate. A solitary illustration of Mr. 
Thomas Skelton^ s family relations bears so closely upon the 
history of other personages in this little drama that it must, 
with a somewhat reluctant hand, be portrayed. 

Very easy for you to say: Do! No girls ever had such 


A BALLROOM REPEiq^TAITCE. 


95 


a poor chance as Aurora^s English grammar is not 

perhaps up to the level of her other accomplishments. 

Living about in invalid places where not a man you meet 
has got an inch of lung left, never going to any parties but 
those wretched pension dances, and obliged to hesitate over 
every penny we spend in dress. 

Aurora glances ruefully at the actual, not overfresh con- 
dition of her poppy-colored ribbons. 

I must confess you are rather heavily weighted/^ says 
• T. S., turning over a foot in order that he may feast his 
eyes, as he discourses, on the faultless perfection of its 
boot and gaiter. In the first place — well, ‘ Handsome is 
as handsome does, ^ the proverb says, but, as regards mar- 
riageable girls, the proverb says bosh. No one at the pres- 
ent age of the world cares a fig about a girEs doings, so long 
as she handsome is. And the three Misses Skelton are not 
handsome. In the second place there is the mamma. 

Alas, for the man, said Jean Paul Eichter, who has Lot 
learned in reverencing his own mother to reverence all 
womankind! 

Men, you see, have a trick of looking at a girPs mater y 
and thinking what the girl herself is likely to become. And 
men — ^you ought to learn this, all of 3^ou, from the mamma, 
downward — you ought to work it in golden letters round 
these ridiculous pinafores — men abhor electro-plate. ^ ^ 

Electro-plate! I declare, T. S., you get more rude in 
your manners every time you come to see us. 

Perhaps, says T. S., coolly, Isee more, every time, 
to make me rude. I have a vested interest, remember, in 
my sisters marrying or not marrying. Each year you go 
on like this, wandering from the Eiviera to Switzerland, 
and back again from Switzerland to the Eiviera, you spend 
more capital. Each year the prospects of my own final 
smash grow more distinct — 

T. S. ! For gracious sake take care you are not over- 
heard!^^ 

The brother and sister are exchanging these affecting 
confidences while Thomas Skelton smokes his after-dinner 
pipe on the Hotel Scherer terrace; and Aurora glances 
round, with alarm, in the direction of the salon windows. 

I doiiT mean to say that anything could stave the smash 
off no\y/^ proceeds Mr. Skelton, in a lower voice. Unless 
I can marry an old woman with the ready, another six 


months will see the end of And this candid young* 

gentleman thrums a tune upon the arm of his chair with 
the fingers of his cadaverous, prematurely nerveless hand. 

If my sisters had found husbands in their youth and — 
well, if anything had happened to the mamma, and she had 
only cut up decently, I might have gone to the dogs at a 
less rapid pace than I am doing now. 

There is a minute or two of silence after this. Then, 
If a girl happens to be the fashion, men follow each other, 
like a flock of sheep, in their admiration of her,’^ cries 
Aurora tearfully. We see that in the case of this weak, 
foolish young Longmore I have been telling you about. Now 
hone^ly, T. S., forgetting that I am your sister, do you 
not think I have as much pretension to beauty as Joyce 
Dormer?^ ^ 

Mr. Thomas Skelton turns his head with the natural in- 
difference that the subject engenders in him. He looks at 
Aurora, slowly, from head to foot. 

Quite honestly, my dear, and forgetting altogether that 
you are my sister, I think you were nicer looking four or 
five years ago. This is his ingenuous answer. At the 
same time, you are a long way the best of the family. 
There, I speak without reserve. If I was forced to take 
one of my sisters about the world, for a wager, say, as be- 
longing to myself, I — dash it all!^^ cries T. S., immensely 
tickled by his own delicate humor, I believe, when it 
came to the push, I should put the three Misses Skelton, 
impartially, in a hat, and draw!^^ 

Aurora^s lip quivers. “ A pity Mr. Thomas Skelton did 
not arrive in Clarens a little sooner. He might have joined 
the train of Joyce Dormer^s admirers! Admirers,^^ adds 
the young lady with bitter emphasis, to be discarded the 
moment Mrs. and Miss Dormer felt assured of the serious 
intentions, the solid thousands a year, of this poor infatuated 
John Farintyre.^^ 

Joyce Dormer is good form,’^ remarks T. S., speaking 
as one having authority. The young gentleman, it will be 
observed, has fixed opinions respecting all subjects in heaven 
and on earth, a complete aphoristic theory of the universe, 
ever ready for enunciation. Not pretty exactly, but the 
look of blood about her — little head well set on sloping 
shoulders, clean-cut ankles, long throat. Just the sort of 
look that the Skelton family has not. Met the girl at 


A BALLEOOM REPEKTAlSrCE. 


97 


Aldersliott balls. Met the girl at Woolwich. Xever took 
the trouble to be introduced! Never any spare dances on 
ony card. 

Mr. Thomas Skelton pauses. Almost at the same mo- 
ment the tall figure of Hugh Loiigrnore draws near through 
the twilight; Hugh Longmore, dull-hearted enough after 
bidding Joyce farewell^ looking blankly forward to an even- 
ing (to a life) oh which neither blue eyes shall smile nor 
deftest, exquisite strains of music make glad. 

And Aurora holds out to him the hand of frank forgive- 
ness. Oversensitive pride, undue reserve, are assuredly not 
among the sins of Mrs. Skelton^s daughters. 

Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Longmore. 
You have been seeing Mrs. and Miss Dormer off ' at the sta- 
tion? Naturally! We remarked your place was vacant at 
the tcible cVMte, Mr. Farintyre I am told accompanies them 
as far as Turin, but to be sure, that may be only fioaroaj. 
One tvould lioye so. You have not met my brother yet — 
the real original T. S. ? Allow me to introduce Mr. Thomas 
Skelton, Mr. Longmore. 

Young Longmore bows; mentally summing up his chances 
of decent escape at the earliest opportunity. 

You will find it dull work in Clarens without your 
friends. We get up a round game of an evening when it is 
too cold to go out — penny baccarat, you know, nothing to 
ruin anybody. Mrs. Scipio Leonidas first brought baccarat 
into fashion in the hotel and ma keeps the bank. Some- 
times we have a little music, but of course,^ ^ Aurora^s tone 
is archly interrogative, ‘LMr. Longmore woiiT care for 
anything but violin music now. 

Mr. Longmore^s answer is to the effect that he cares for 
all music’ that is good ; and, as he speaks, his eyes wander 
along the terrace; through the darkness he sees the wooden 
stairs, at the top of which a golden head, a girhs voice, pure 
as morning, were wont to welcome him. 

ThaFs just my case,^^ observes T. S., with his drawl. 

DonT care a curse for amateurs and pianoforte players. 
Give me your operatic tip-tojDpers — Patti and Trebelli — or 
nothing. Them’s my maxims. 

The young Oxonian turns away in silence. Mr. Thomas 
Skelton, thin-skinned, like most gentlemen of his class, 
feels both movement and silence to be aggressive; and Mr. 
Thomas Skelton retaliates thus: 


98 


A BALLKOOM EEPENTANCE. 


Dormer? Dormer? Thought I recognized the Dormer 
girl somewhere about this morning. Hanging out^ do you 
say, Aurora, at this hotel? 

Mrs. and Miss Dormer have been spending a week in 
Clarens. They started an hour ago for Italy. Oh, and 
Joyce Dormer is quite too lovely!^'' cries Aurora with 
effusion. All the gentlemen went wild about her. The 
dearest little innocent face you ever beheld 

Innocent!'’^ repeats T. S., with an unpleasant chuckle. 

Then it could scarcely be the Joyce Dormer I have met at 
the Woolwich and Aldershott balls. The girl I mean is a 
girl with a history, you might say — a girl with several his- 
tories, Item: a well-set throat, a complexion, a pair of 
blue eyes, and a fiddle. A girl who has just netted some 
awfully rich cad out of the city— pickles, blacking, shares 
— I donH know how the fellow made his money — of the 
namo of Darintyre.^^ 

A rush of hot anger thrills through Longmore^s breast. 
The fingers of his right hand, loosely swinging at a conven- 
ient distance of two or three feet from Mr. Thomas Skel- 
ton ^s head, clinch involuntarily. Then he cools down: by 
a strong effort at self-mastery, makes no sign. What busi- 
ness is it, in sooth, of his, if men speak lightly or loyally 
of John Farintyre^s betrothed? What to him is Joyce Dor- 
mer? \ A memory of heaven-blue eyes, of gracious sound 
and movement, of a pair of white, thyme-scented hands, 
held for a too brief second, before Ins face in the mountain 
moonlight. 

Yes, it was at an Aldershott ball that I first met her.^^ 
And T. S. settles himself into a position as nearly vertical 
as the nature of M. Scherer’s garden chairs will permit. 

Let me see, that must be something like two years ago 
last May. Miss Dormer was in the bloom of her first sea- 
son. AVhite muslin, lilies-of-the-valley, constant reference 
to mamma, and blushes. Usual attributes,” says this pro* 
found and original cynic, of the bread and butter ingenue, 
Next time I saw her was in August of the same year — down 
at Cowes, you know — everybody of one’s set there — Joyce 
Dormer among the rest, in all the importance of a given- 
out engagement. She and her mother between them had 
played their game well, had bagged Eoger Tryan, the third 
or fourth biggest matrimonial catch, as it was thought, of 
the ‘season. ” 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


99 


Eoger Tryan!^^ cries Aurora Skelton, ‘^Wliat! the 
Eoger Tryan who loses such shocking sums of money at 
Monte Carlo, and who people declare is such a broken- 
down dangerous mvt of person?^^ adds the young lady, cast- 
ing down her eyelids prettily. 

The dangerous broken-down sort of person, at the time 
Joyce Dormer accepted him, was the most popular specula- 
tion out, heir to a line landed property, and one of the 
handsomest fellows about town. Deuced proud the Dor- 
mers were of the engagement, says Mr. Thomas Skelton. 

Eecollect it all as if it was yesterday. Tryan had a 
steam yacht down at Cowes (Lord Bartie Stornoway, in- 
timate friend of my own, bought her when the smash 
came), and Mrs. and Miss Dormer, dressed like sisters, 
used to be seen everywhere with him. The two prettiest 
women in Cowes, some men thought, but I never myself 
cared much about your iceberg beauties. IS^ever took the 
trouble to be introduced either to mother or daughter! 
Yes, the marriage was to be in October — remember the 
date because my friend Lord Bartie had been asked to be 
best man. Dreadfully bored his lordship was at the pros- 
pect! Kept away from the moors, you know, and that. 
Aurora Skelton at this juncture grows interested. 

And the wedding after all did not come she re- 
marks. ‘‘ That much, I suppose, is certain.'’^ 

^^Well, no,^^ answers T. S. with a yawn. The wed- 
ding did not come off. . Eoger Tryan^s father took it into 
his head just then to fall ill; more inconvenient still, he 
took it into his head, on his death-bed, to turn virtuous. 
Old gentleman, you see, like most of the name, had lived 
every hour of his life, while he could live them, and had 
accumulated debts of honor and otherwise, chiefly other- 
wise, that there was no means but one of meeting. That 
means was — to quash the entail. Eoger Tryan, it seems, 
held quixotic notions about honor, thought it a fine thing 
to ease the old man^s conscience and whitewash the par- 
ental memory by beggaring himself. And between them 
— never took the trouble to enter into the legal details — 
they managed it, without consulting Mrs. Dormer, you 
may be sure ! The father died in the odor of sanctity, and 
the son^s income came down with a run from thousands to 
tens. Ko quixotic notions, myself, in the matter of 


100 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTAKCE. 


money/ ^ says Mr. Thomas Skelton. If a fond parent of 
my own was to drop off the perch to-morrow, I — 

You are a horrid boy!^^ interrupts Aurora, slapping 
him playfully on the shoulder. I declare you shall not 
talk so! Mr. Tryan is quite out of society — loe never met 
him at a single Nice ball, and I am sure,*’^ the young lady 
gives a bashful glance at Longmore, one would not re- 
peat half the stories they tell about him. Still, it was 
awfully nice of him to sacrifice his own interest to the fam- 
ily name! Joyce Dormer, or any girl of generous, delicate 
feeling, would appreciate such conduct. 

‘^Generous feeling! Delicate feeling, repeats T. S. 
with elliptic contempt. In the present advanced state 
of liberal education! In a girl as well known for her 
■worldly wisdom as Joyce Dormer !^^ 

Young Longmore turns sharply aside; indignation, 
something painf uller far than indignation — a suspicion that 
the things he hears may be within the pale of truth — hold- 
ing him dumb. 

It was said by some people that she fretted. No doubt 
she did fret — over the loss of the estate, not the lover! Ea- 
member the first time I saw her again next winter, her and 
her mother, at one of the Woolwich balls. Awfully skinny 
about the collar-bones Miss Joyce Dormer had grown, had 
a color that looked like rouge — believe it was rouge, now 
one thinks of it — on her cheeks. All the same she never 
wavered as to her Muty.^ Let a well-brought-uj) girl 
alone for that, when duty means money. Within a fort- 
night of the old man^s death, Eoger Tryan was sent to the 
right-about (consoled himself tolerably quick, though! 
Not the sort of a fellow to wear willow for any coquette of 
them all. ) And before next winter was over Miss Dormer 
and her blue eyes and white throat had been bid for again ; 
this time by a man old enough to be her grandfather. 
Sir Kenneth Grant. 

Bid for! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, T. S. 
The way you young men talk is positively too odious. 
What do you say, Mr. Longmore 

Mr. Longmore says nothing. He gazes toward the west- 
ern horizon, the horizon whither Joyce is traveling, with 
Farintyre for an escort. And his heart is sore within him : 
a feeling curiously near to personal shame causes his breath 
to come thick and fast. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAIS^CE. 


101 


It was as much a matter of bidding as anything that 
goes on at Tattersalls^ sales/^ says T. S. coolly. After 
the Tryan business blew over, the girl came more in fash- 
ion than ever, collar-bone and rouge notwithstanding. 
Lawson of ‘ Ours went wild about her, and there was Ian 
Mclan, the big Highlander, the Vesey Armytage of the 
Fusiliers. And then, quietly, one fine morning, Mrs. Dor- 
mer gave out that her daughter was engaged to Sir Ken- 
neth Grant, and would be married before the end of the 
season. Why that affair never came off no one knew for 
certain. I have reason to believe,^ ^ says T. S., in a tone 
suggesting backstair information, that Sir Kenneth 
Grant repented him, ere it was too late, of liis bargain, 
and had to bleed pretty freely to get out of it. Since then, 
Mrs. and Miss Dormer have taken a good deal to intel- 
lectual coquetry and the Continent. Know heaps of fel- 
lows who have met them on their travels. Music, poetry, 
sad-colored draperies, ‘ going on to Kaples to join Mr. Dor- 
mer and the tea-pots. That^s about their present figure — 
the figure, it seems, that has proved one too many for this 
idiot, Farintyre.-"^ 

“And Mr. Koger Tryan consoled himself, remarks 
Aurora, presently; the drawling, illiterate accents of T. S. 
having lapsed into silence. 

“ Eoger Tryan fell into good hands, my dear. Eoger 
Tryan ^s money matters were not so desperate but that he 
could still find a friend in need in this wicked world. 
Notably, says Thomas Skelton with emphasis, “ a friend 
with a wife. Surely, knocking about down in the South of 
France, some of you girls must have come across Nessie 
Pinto 

“ Nessie Pinto, her red umbrella, her husband, her lap- 
dog — and Eoger Tryan! Well, yes, we have come across 
them rather too often,^^ says Aurora, playfully. “ The 
group is one of the Nice institutions. People used to say — 
only, of course, ma never lets us listen to such things — that 
Eoger Tryan more than once has had to pay the Pintos^ 
gambling losses as well as his own. 

“ I^'e no doubt of it. A fellow who would do himself 
out of his own birthright would be madman enough even 
for that. 

And rising from his chair, T. S. whistles, yawns, stretches 
his arms; then lounges, hands in pockets, after the manner 


102 


A BALLKOO]M REPENTANCE. 


of his tribe, into the salon; whither the interests of this 
narrative do not, happily, require us to follow him. 

Longmore takes a few impatient steps along the terrace. 
Profoundly calm, as though no storm had ever convulsed 
her breast, shimmers Lake Leman. Sweet smell the 
autumn roses as on that first evening when he and Joyce 
started together along the chestnut avenue toward Glion. 
Half a score of stars glimmer mild in the gray-blue heaven. 
The young man feels that Nature makes mock at him, so 
utterly is the chord she strikes at dissonance with his own 
harsh and jarring thoughts. At some hundred paces^ dis- 
tance he sees the familiar wooden staircase up which his 
steps were first drawn by the magic of Joyce^s violin. No 
light shines from the windows on the first fioor, no serenest 
girlish voice renders night musical with its ring. 

And standing here, bitterly musing, young Longmore 
deducts what moral he may from the coarse and idle talk 
to which he has newly listened. 

He feels almost as one might feel who should be shown a 
vile photograph of some dear face, forever lost; the lines 
horribly like in their unlikeness, although the delicate, the 
ineffable grace of the original have vanished. Can this, 
then, not the dream he dreamed of her, be Joyce Dormer? 
— this girl who could forsake her lover when fortune was 
blindest, who has been hardened by a trio of London sea- 
sons, who is well known at Woolwich and Aldershott. An 
intellectual coquette using the past to give pathos to the 
little new song that she sings, and converting even her 
music, the art for which she so deftly simulates passion, 
into a tool of vanity. 

You will join us in the salon, Mr. Longmore, will you 
not?^^ says Aurora Skelton, in dulcet accents, at his elbow. 

Of course we have no classic instrumental music to offer; 
still, when the round game is over, if you would care for 
one of my simple ballads, as you used?^^ 

But Longmore, as untempted by penny baccarat as by 
the siren persuasion of Aurora ^s voice, has vanished in the 
twilight. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE, 


103 


CHAPTER XIIL 


THIS TERRIBLE MRS. PINTO. 

So falls the curtain on Clarens, so ends the bitter-sweet 
episode in minor of Hugh Longmore^s life. 

Mrs. Dormer and Joyce spend the remaining weeks of 
autumn at the Italian lakes; Christmas sees them at San 
Remo^ Mrs. Dormer having heard news that makes her 
wisely cautious of approaching Monte Carlo more nearly. 
And then, toward the end of January, spring bursts upon 
the Riviera. The mimosa’s golden clouds, the young 
corn’s emerald green, the almond blossoms, the violet-scents, 
remind Joyce hourly that Easter draws on apace; that her 
life, with all its still fair possibilities, may, in another few 
weeks, be hers no longer, but the property of Mr. John 
Farintyre. 

Why, in this heaven of blue weather, not go on to Rome 
at once? Mrs. Dormer throws out the suggestion one deli- 
cious morning on the San Remo sea-walk, throws it out in 
a quiet, negative manner, savoring not of premeditation. 
Why not secure a short space of picture-seeing and Cam- 
pagna- visiting to themselves before the onerous business of 
millinery and dress-making is forced upon their hands? 

Or get over the onerous millinery business now, and go 
to Rome, with an unburdened conscience,” Joyce answers, 
her tone betokening more interest than the subject of bridal 
preparations usually awakens in her. “ I have heard you 
say, mamma, that there are no shops, short of Paris, to 
compare with the Nice shops. Why not spend the next 
few weeks there? A change would put us in spirits, per- 
haps, nerve us up for the inevitable. I — I mean for Eas- 
ter, and all that Easter will bring with it.” 

The girl breaks off her speech curtly, and with an over- 
rapid change of color. 

Is the moment a favorable one for giving a gentle blow 
to the absent? Mrs. Dormer judges it to be so; and, for 
the first time since a certain momentous night in Clarens, 
approaches the forbidden subject of Roger Tryan. 

If things had turned out differently, if we had had the 
protection, even, of your father’s presence” — poor, inno- 


104 


A BALLROOM REPEOTAITCE. 


cent Mr. Dormer, looking after his tea-pots in Naples! — 
we might have spent the \Yinter surrounded by our Nice 
friends. I had not sufficient moral courage to take you 
there alone. Dear Lady Joan Majendie wrote to me, 
Joyce, when we were at Bellagio.^^ 

‘‘ She did so, mother. I remember the expression of 
your face as you read Lady Joan Majendie^s letter!^^ 

At the time, I shrunk from putting that letter into 
your hands, yet I can scarcely doubt that you guess at its 
contents. An old acquaintance, my poor child, whom you 
and I scarcely wish to encounter, is wintering with his 
friends at a convenient distance from the Monte Carlo 
gambling-tables — ^ 

“ You mean Eoger Tryan,^^ interrupts Joyce, tracing a 
monogram — who shall say of what initials? — with the point 
of her umbrella, in the sand. Dark hints in John Farin- 
tyre^s letters made me suspect the truth a good many weeks 
ago. But what if he be? Lady Joan is also in Nice, and 
can protect us. Are we never to enter any town during 
the remainder of our mortal lives for fear of coming across 
Mr. Eoger Tryan?^^ 

You do not think that to see him, an unpoetized fact, 
in the society of Major and Mrs. Pinto, would jar upon 
one’s taste?” 

I think that all such weakness may be cured by heroic 
treatment, mother. The good old legend of the Spartans 
and the Helots teaches us that much. We spoke of these 
things before, if you remember,” Joyce adds with firmness, 
one night in Olarens, and we decided that for me to en- 
counter such a sight might be salutary. It could surely 
not be more dangerous to see Eoger Tryan once than to 
think of him constantly. ” 

There is latent wisdom in these words that Mrs. Dormer 
is prompt to recognize. J oyce has not been getting on well 
as could be wished, of late. She works overmuch at her 
music like one who would fain force mental rest through 
bodily exhaustion. Her eyes are heavy of a morning, fever- 
ish at night. Her flesh wastes. The San Eemo doctors 
have hinted at weak action of the heart.” Who shall 
say that to brave the worst, to see Eoger Tryan sunk in 
the social scale, a gambler, a castaway, to see him, even, 
at the side of this terrible Mrs. Pinto, might not prove a 
wholesome tonic? 


A BALLROOM REPE^^TAKCE. 


105 


ISTothing of course would suit them better than to spend 
four or five weeks in Nice, if an apartment for so short a 
term could be hired. One might, at least, write letters of 
inquiry to some of the agents. 

The place is really so large, muses Mrs. Dormer. 

We should be so safely hemmed in by our own set of ac- 
quaintance, that I am tempted to run the risk. Such per- 
sons as Major and Mrs. Pinto would spend more of their 
time in the congenial atmosphere of Monte Carlo than in 
Nice. One might be half a winter there without encounter- 
ing any of the deplorable class of English to which jDoor 
Mr. Tryan now belongs. 

In which surmise little Mrs. Dormer, with all her surface 
knowledge of the world, proves wrong. 

The change of plans is carried out, an apartment secured, 
and for the first few days after amving in Nice everything 
goes on with deceitful smoothness. Old friends and ac- 
quaintance are to be met with at every turning; cards of 
invitation pour in. J oyce^s color at the end of eight-and- 
fprty hours begins to brighten. Mrs. Dormer, easily reas- 
sured in matters physiological, makes up her mind that 
stronger tonics will not be needed. All that the girl needed 
was change, a restorative stimulant to the force-centers.^^ 
She had grown hipped at San Eemo; had dreamed over her 
music too exclusively, lived alone too much; eaten too lit- 
tle. Now, if one can but rouse her interest in the millmery 
or bridal business of the next four or five weeks — as a mere 
call on dormant energy, it matters little whether the occa- 
sion be one of pleasure or pain — steer clear, let us hope, of 
all that can rekindle past folly, futile sentiment, and after- 
ward trust to Eoman sunshine, Eoman sight-seeing, until 
Easter! 

Things, I repeat, have gone on with deceitful smoothness 
for some days. There appears a deus ex macliind upon the 
scene. Then does Mrs. Dormer gain such insight into De- 
plorable Classes, their words and ways, as sends all optimist 
hope, all euphemistic commonplace, to the winds. 

And the insight comes at first-hand. The deu8 ex mack- 
ind takes the form of this terrible Mrs. Pinto lierself. 


106 


A BALLROOM REPEITTAiq'CE. 


CHAPTEE XIV. 

DETERIORATIOK. 

CoucJie4oif Mufti, couclie-toi cries a voice in rasping 
Anglo-French accents. ^^Mr. Tryan, would jou have” the 
kindness to hold my poor darling ^s chain? He has taken 
up the most uncomfortable trick of barking at odd-looking 
people. Couclie-toi, Mufti, done, mauvais sujet que tu es,’’ 

Nice lies aglow in the transparent January noontide, and 
Nessie Pinto, with her scarlet umbrella, her lap-dog, her 
husband, and her husband ^s friend, has for more than an 
hour paced up and down the most conspicuous alUe of the 
Promenade des Anglais. Tiring of this at last, the lady 
turns into a side-path, where, by evil chance, two plainly 
dressed English ladies sit reading under shadow of the 
palms; the odd-looking people at whom Mufti, guided 
we may suppose by some finer canine instinct, has thought 
fit to bark — J oyce Dormer and her mother. 

Xessie is a tall-statured, large-limbed goddess of the type 
Eubens loved to paint. A pyramid of bleached golden 
hair towers, cloud-like, above her forehead. She wears 
(even in this divinest sunshine) a complexion; item: inordi- 
nate jewelry, inordinate heels to her boots, over-tight 
gloves, and a throat as heroically bared as that of a German 
student at a ball. 

Xesie Pinto is, by her own acknowledgment, thirty-four 
years old. 

Look at her in repose, the coal-black eyes well open, the 
scarlet lips tightly shut, and the sternest critic could 
scarcely fail of calling her a handsome woman. Let her 
grow animated, and — hey, presto! — charm vanishes. The 
smile is mean, displaying — fatal defect — more of gums 
than of teeth; the black eyes lack steadfastness; the com- 
plexion, brilliant though it be, is of texture too opaque to 
admit of a blush; supposing, always, that the art of blush- 
ing were among Xessie Pinto^s acquirements! 

The same critic watching Joyce Dormer in one of her 
least animated moods might, with argument on his side, 
dispute the girPs claim to beauty, pronounce her expres- 
sion listless, her coloring insipid; her eyes, despite their 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


107 


blue, cold. But let Joyce Dormer wake up, touch the 
strings of her Stradivarius, speak of a theme or of a person 
she loves, and mark the change — the eloquent blood quick 
mantling under the too-clear skin, the rare smile display- 
ing a row of porcelain teeth, the flashes of light and dark- 
ness, of tenderness and indignation, to which the cold 
blue eyes can be the channel! 

The beauty of the woman, in brief, is physical; of the 
earth earthy; a coarse page that the crowd who run may 
read. The loveliness of the girl is spiritual; something to 
be felt, like a verse by Shelley or a melody by Schubert. 

And at the present miserable crisis of Joyce Dormer^s 
history, the beauty that is of the earth earthy would seem 
beyond doubt or question to be in the ascendant. 

Mamma, did you remark who passed upon our left?’^ 
asks the poor girl, very low, and with a trembling lip. 
“ That lady must be Mrs. Pinto. Yes, there can be no 
doubt about it. We have heard the description so often of 
the Frenchified husband, the umbrella, the lap-dog, and 
Koger Tryan.^^ And though Joyce feels that the heart in 
her breast has turned to ice, she brings out the name of her 
old lover with a kind of forced courage. 

Marking her place with a slender, gloved finger, Mrs. 
Dormer looks up from her book — Mill on Liberty. It 
is one of her few dogmas that no one day should pass with- 
out reading a chapter of John Stuart or Buckle, simply 
as a' kind of tuning-fork, to raise one’s mind above the 
dead-level pitch of frivolity. ’ Her gray eyes, fresh and 
wondering as a child’s, turn placidly in the direction 
whither Joyce had bidden her look. 

The people with the umbrella and the dog — for a mo- 
ment it occurred to me that the creature might have 
barked at us under orders! Yes, I remarked them. This 
terrible Mrs. Pinto, if it be she, is really handsome, or 
would be . handsome loith education, and witlmit paint. 
One mourns always over a nice-looking, hopelessly vulgar 
woman. The woild is not so full of beauty that we can 
afford to have raw material thrown away.’^ 

The speech is characteristic. If Mrs. Dormer meditated 
destruction to her worst enemy, she would plan her cam- 
paign from the vantage-ground of taste; would scathe her 
foe by some calmly crushing analysis of flounce, head-dress. 


108 


A BALLKOO]M REPE^STTAKCE. 


or complexion, yet give no sign that human passion, nor 
artistic feeling, lent animus to the blow. 

Would you have believed, mother, that any man^s taste 
could so deteriorate? I regret nothing, of course — 

Mrs. Dormer ^s pulse gives just one throb of triumph. 

‘^And everything connected with Eoger Tryan belongs 
to the dear old days that are jDast and done with. Yet to 
think of a taste that was once refined, to think of the 
Eoger Tryan we knew, sinking to associates like these 

On occasions, rare and j)ointedly well-selected, Mrs. 
Dormer^s vision changes focus. She becomes short-sighted 
now. Disengaging a double eyeglass from her waist-belt, 
she holds it up for some seconds upon the bridge of her 
delicate nose. 

I quite agree with you, my love, about deterioration in 
a general way. You did not, I think, read that little book 
of Professor Lankester^s? Really his remarks about our 
ruined cousins, the Ascidians, are most suggestive. Are 
we hopelessly degenerate? Is the whole human race drift- 
ing on to the condition of an intellectual barnacle, or is it 
not?^^ 

At this question, still more at the smooth, chill tone in 
which it is 23nt, Joyce turns impatiently aside. 

W^e have,^^ proceeds Mrs. Dormer cheerfully — men 
and women as well as barnacles — three possibilities open 
to us; balance, elaboration, degeneracy. There is no 
standing still. As regards the group around yonder red 
umbrella, I must confess the different members composing 
it appear to me in singularly harmonious keeping. 

Mother— 

“ I speak with deliberation, Joyce. Accompanying such 
a lady, and such a lap-dog, it is natural and fitting, within 
a given radius of Monte Carlo, to see a pair of do-nothing, 
hope-nothing English loungers, who have once been gentle- 
men.^^ 

^‘ Once been? Mother, you are severe. Do you mean 
that Roger Tryan could ever cease to be that 

The grouip around the red umbrella is by this time far 
out of hearing of Mrs. and Miss Dormer ^s voices. But as 
Joyce speaks Tryan^s name he turns (in obedience, it 
would seem, to a short whisper from IN’essie Pinto) and 
recognizes her. 

The man and girl who, during two or three love-lit 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 109 

months, found heaven, a j^assionate one, each in the other^s 
eyes, have met again — thus! 

" Moved by a sudden reasonless impulse, Joyce Dormer 
starts to her feet. She forgets Major and Mrs. Pinto, for- 
gets all the eyes and tongues of the crowded Promenade des 
Anglais. It seems to her only that her lost lover ^s face 
says, Come,^^ and that she must obey him. 

Mrs. Dormer, who forgets nothing, rises also. Shutting 
up John Stuart Mill, Mrs. Dormer rests her firm small 
hand upon her daughters arm, stands for a moment or 
two as though absorbed in the fair panorama of the sea 
and shore, then turns away in an exactly opposite direc- 
tion to that taken by Eoger Tryan and the Pintos. 

It is time for us to be going homeward, Joyce. Glori- 
ous though this sunshine is, I should like to have one more 
joractice of our new ‘ Poeme Symphonique, ^ and our friends 
have promised to be with us early. 

For already Mrs. Dormer has started a weekly afternoon, 
one that even • amidst the formidable competition of Nice 
afternoons, bids fair for popularity. 

What are we speaking about?^^ she runs on, with the 
perfect naturalness that is the most difficult of arts. 

Mr. Tryan — of course, and those distressing friends of 
his. Yes,' jDOor Eoger was a gentleman by birth; I used 
once to think a gentleman in taste. But he has gone 
downhill fast.'’^ Mrs. Dormer shows sufficient interest in 
Eoger Tryan^s pace to give a pretty shudder. ^MYe are 
the slaves, all of us, of environment. A white poppy, you 
know, loses its whiteness if its groV among colored ones. 
Should Eoger Tryan change as much during the next two 
years as he has done during the last, he will have sunk be- 
low the level of his friend and associate — Nessie Pinto's 
husband." 

And it would be hard, even for Mrs. Dormer, to utter a 
prediction more cruel. 


CHAPTEE XV. 

SHE THAT IS KINDEST. 

Xessie Pinto's husband is a slim-waisted, shabbyish, 
orange- bearded little major, verging on fifty. Something 
in the cut of his gaiters, the arrangment of his neck-tie — 


110 


A BALLEOOM REPEi^TANCE. 


some expression in the furtive eyes that never, for an in- 
stant, encounter yours, would make you, at a first glance, 
connect Pinto with British book-making and the British 
ring. At the next, you are inclined to set him down as 
the out-at-elbows manager of a traveling French circus, his 
big-checked suit, much- worn yellow gloves, and Frenchified 
air— -shall we add, his wife and Mufti? — givingMajor Pinto 
a foreign varnish, to which, perhaps, an article of plain 
home manufacture might be preferable. 

Did not Talleyrand say he misdoubted any Englishman 
who spoke French too well? 

Pinto, in a certain sense, speaks French too well; un- 
grammatically as a porter, but with an absence of foreign 
accent, an acquaintance with idiom, especially the idiom 
of the gaming-table and the turf, that render Frenchmen 
themselves (such Frenchmen as are his fellows in the neigh- 
borhood of 'Nice and Monaco), uncertain as to his nation- 
ality. 

In what branch of our service Nessie^s husband obtained 
his rank of major, I am ignorant. He shows a shyness, 
not uncommon among brave men, in speaking of his mili- 
tary achievements; but. will boast freely enough of old 
sporting exploits in the eastern counties, and has been 
known, when unusually sentimental in the small hours, to 
allude, over a fourth glass of whisky and water, to his 

boyish days at Eton. 

The Pintos^ means of subsistence may be represented by 
X. Xessie, in her higher flights of rhetoric, has been heard 
to talk of Pinto’s allowance. But then Nessie has also 
been heard to talk of our county,” our conservative 
influence,” ^‘Pinto’s family,” Pinto’s stud of horses.” 
Conjecturally, it is believed that this gentleman was once 
connected with the stables of a notorious peer at New- 
market. As a matter of fact, it is known that he quitted 
Newmarket abruptly, on the morrow of a darkly inau- 
sjDicious Two Thousand, never more to show his face in that 
or any other English racing locality. 

Upon the surface. Major Pinto’s way of living would 
seem unpremeditated as a butterfly’s — now shooting in 
Corsica, now baccarat-playing in Naples and Florence, now 
gambling — looking on, perhaps, at the ventures of his wife 
rather than actually risking money of his own — at Monte 
Carlo. I should also add, as a possible source of revenue. 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


Ill 


tke friendship, during the past two years, of Eoger Tryan. 
How did that friendship come about? How sunk the high- 
soiled son, the chivalrous lover, the man whose breatli was 
mo^’e than a bond from other men, to association so un- 
worthy? 

The writer who could solve that question, analyze the 
hold coarseness will gain, under some adverse conditions, 
upon men of delicate moral fiber, might contribute a 
chapter worth reading to the natural history of human 
weakness. 

To start with, there was the factor that brings about 
half the loves and friendships in the world — propinquity. 

In the first gloomy days succeeding his father^s death and 
Iiis own altered fortune, it chanced that Eoger Tryan came 
across Isessie and her husband at one of the remoter 
Bavarian watering-places. Some years before, when Tryan 
was a Cambridge undergraduate, he and Pinto had formed, 
or so the fact stood recorded in the maj or ^s plastic memory, 
a hunting-field acquaintance. This acquaintance, renewed 
in a spot where a two-days^ old Times, sulphur- water, 
buckhorn carvings, and a midday German dinner were 
the main resources, soon developed into intimacy; accident 
ripened it into something, which, lacking a better word, we 
may call friendship. In the course of a hill excursion to 
some neighboring ruins, Eoger Tryan dutifully attendant 
at the side of Mrs. Pinto^s donkey, it came to pass that the 
iady^s steed slipped, and that her cavalier, in saving her 
from an awkward fall, met, himself, with a sprained ankle. 

The circumstances were by no means romantic, the sprain 
was not severe. For more than a week, however, Eoger 
could not put his foot to the ground, and during this week, 
Mrs. Pinto, carried away by the grateful impulse of the 
moment, constituted herself his nurse. 

And to do so required some amount of moral hardihood. 
Major Pinto, within four-and-twenty hours of the accident, 
was obliged to run away on business — that inscrutable, 
that convenient Pinto business, of which no man has ever 
known the nature! He remained absent ten days. But 
ISTessie w^as not a woman to flinch at trifles; certainly not a 
woman to stifle grateful impulses out of regard for the 
shallow good opinion of the world. The thirty or forty 
English people at Langen 'VValdstein might surmise, lift 


112 


A BALLROOM REPEi^TAl^CE. 


tlieir eyebrows, shake their heads, and pass upon the other 
side, an^ they listed. Eessie had the courage of her 
opinions through it all. She was seen each morning trip- 
ping across the Kurgarten vvith flowers and wild straw- 
berries to Koger Tryan^s hotel. She chatted beside the in- 
valid on his balcony, played chess and double-dummy for 
his amusement, dined with liim~yes, and after dinner, a 
hundred or so eyes from the Kurgarten -looking on, would 
prevail upon him to smoke his pipe and sip his brandy and 
seltzer (of which she partook exactly as she might have done 
had Major Pinto been present.) 

It was this conduct, I think, that first won Tryan^s re- 
spect. 

Kessie^s gratitude was exaggerated, an averted tumble 
from a donkey scarcely affording ground for melodramatic 
self-sacrifice. Her complexion, poor dear woman, was too 
much made up for morning wear in Langen Waldstein. 
Her aspirates and her syntax were alike open to animadver- 
sion. 

But see what nobility of heart was hers, what courage, 
what stanchness! 

Eoger Tryan, bear in mind, had been newly galled to the 
quick. He felt bitter against Joyce Dormer for her in- 
fidelity, bitter against the whole tribe of worldly mothers, 
and the love yielded by their too obedient daughters, not 
to a suitor himself, but to the suitor^s acres. Women of 
cultivation, of birth, of the world — ay, of ^/lose he had had 
amjfie experience. Was not Nessie Pinto richer in the fair 
womanly qualities of compassion and unselfishness than 
nine tenths of them? 

And thus it happened, with a little help from without,, 
that the rupture between Joyce Dormer and the man she 
loved became irreparable! 

Pre-eminent among the small English colony at Langen 
Waldstein was Lady Joan Majendie, head of the great 
banking-house of Majendie & Colquhoun; a slight acquaint- 
ance of Eoger Tryan^'s, an intimate friend of Mrs. Dor- 
mer ^s. In using the term head of the firm, I speak ad- 
visedly. Does not every one know what place Mr. Majendie 
— at this particular period going through a cure for 
-rheumatism — holds in the firm and in ^s domestic rela- 
tions? Mrs. Dormer was never without the amiable in- 
firmity of title-loving common to the best of us. It was 


A BALLROOM REPEisTAKCE. 


113 


her pleasure also to have a side entrance into as many 
ditferent London circles as possible: the gay, the literary, 
the artistic, the Other-worldly. 

Lady Joan Majendie constituted her Open Sesame to the 
Other-worldly, 

At seasons when she felt sure of her audience — notably 
in Joyce ^s absence — little Mrs. Dormer has been known 
to speak of her dearest Lady Joan as That Saint. 

Well, that saint Avas here, in Langen Waldstein, bent on 
upsetting the belief of an idolatrous Catholic peasantry, 
while the poor banker meekly made his dinner off herbs or 
sipped and sat in sulphur. And on the first day Roger 
Tryan was able to limp forth from his hotel, leaning on 
Mrs. Pinto^s arm (he could have got along well alone, but 
Nessie insisted upon enacting walking-stick). Lady Joan 
-Majendie, bustling around on conversion Avork, in her poke 
bonnet, blue spectacles, and with her bag full of half-penny 
German tracts, met, and cut him. 

One may honestly think that, in doing so, the saint acted 
according to her lights. Roger Tryan^s late conduct, in 
respect of his father^s debts, had sunk him to zero in Lady 
Joanns good graces. These high-floAvn deeds of abnegation 
were, according to her system of ethics, pure quixotism, a 
branch of human weakness to which saints, when solid 
pounds, shillings, and pence are concerned, are specially 
inimical. And noAV — Ah, my friend,^'’ wrote Lady Joan, 
in a solemn note of Avarning to Mrs. Dormer, now, his. 
engagement to your dear Joyce scarce broken off, his social 
downfall fresh in menu’s minds, Mr. Tryan is to be seen 
publicly advertising himself at the side of a creature like 
this!"’ 

Possibly, if Lady Joan Majendie "s visiting-lists could 
have been scanned, creatures as faulty as ISTessie Pinto had 
been found there. But these would be Avell-married creat- 
ures, or high-born creatures, or creatures strict, exceeding- 
ly, as to the tithing of mint, anise and cumin. Hard and 
&st lines must be drawn someioJiere, especially by a saint 
who is connected Avith the mammon of unrighteousness 
through big banking interests. And, as I have said. Lady 
Joan Majendie, coming across Tryan and ISTessie Pinto as 
they Avere sloAvly Avalking along the Langen Waldstein 
Kurgarten, looked very straight indeed from behind her 
blue spectacles, and cut Roger Tryan dead. 


114 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAITCE. 


He eu joyed the humor of the thing immensely at the 
time, so did his companion. Major Pinto returned that 
evening, his business over, and Nessie, who really had a 
pretty talent for acting, depicted the scene in an improvised 
poke- bonnet, a pair of spectacles, and a bag, supposed to 
be full of goody literature, for her husband^ s diver-- 
sion. 

But Lady Joan Majendie^s cutting was only the begin- 
ning of the end, and it may well be that the humor of ihe 
situation wore off to Eoger Tryan^s mind as he became 
more practically used to it. 

In Langen Walds tein, as among certain London sets, the 
Majendie opinion carried weight — was acted upon. People 
had no worse things to say of Roger than that he was his 
own enemy; a Don Quixote, running his head against perpet- 
ual windmills; a Bayard, walking too high a plane for our 
poor nineteeth-century consciences! But how could ladies 
bow to Bayard when he elected to spend his mornings, after- 
noons, and evenings in the society of those terrible Pintos? 
Was not the easiest, the obvious solution, to follow the ex- 
ample of that dear, wise old serpent. Lady Joan— not bow 
at all? 

And then it was that Joyce, remorse-stricken under the 
sense that she had treated him ignobly, eager for explana- 
tion, willing to repair her mo therms first injustice and con- 
sider the world well lost so that she might but lose it for 
Roger Tryan — then it was that the girl heard of her lost 
lover in connection with Major and Mrs. Pinto. 

Break the painful truth to Joyce as tenderly as you 
can,^^ wrote dear Lady Joan in a second letter to Mrs. 
Dormer. If, indeed, you judge it wise to let Joyce know 
the truth at all. Mr. Roger Tryan is the devoted attendant 
of a quite too notorious Mrs. Pinto. I am afraid, from 
what Mr. Majendie tells me — on rare occasions poor Mr. 
Majendie was thus pushed to the fore in the capacity of 
stalking horse — ‘‘ that it does not better matters to add, 
Mr. Roger Tryan is the friend of Mrs. Pinto^s husband. 

The Langen Waldstein episode took place more than two 
years before the date of my story, and during these two 
years Eoger Tryan^s chance-formed intimacy with the Pin- 
tos has remained unbroken. His poverty, it must be borne 
in mind, was relative: an income remaining to him after 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


115 


:tlie elder Tryaii^s debts were paid that to many a small 
landholder or country vicar would seem competence, and 
that afforded much nice picking to his friend^ Major Pinto; 
for this gentleman has ever believed, with Panurge, that it 
is a divine thing to lend, a heroic virtue to owe, and carries 
out his ideal of heroism fully in his every-day practice. 

AVeHl finish the winter off comfortably here in Xice,^^ 
remarks Nessie^s husband, as the trio saunter back from 
the Promenade des Anglais to TryatPs hotel, where the 
usual lunch and champagne await them; spend the sum- 
mer in Savoy — Eaux-les-Bains, or some of those places 
where a little quiet, friendly j)lay goes on under the rose, 
and then run down to Corsica, say, in November. If a man 
can have a dinner of seven dishes with good wine for noth- 
ing anywhere, ^tis in Corsica. But, you know, my dear fel- 
low, runs on Pinto, genially, we must really set up joint 
housekeeping when next we settle down. Nessie says so.^^ 
Eoger Tryan at the present moment occupies a bachelor 
apartment in the Hotel des Trois Ernpereurs, while Major 
and Mrs. Pinto board at a second-class pension outside the 
town — that dreary Pension Potpourri to which Mrs. Skelton 
and her daughters give the name of home. IVe never 
known Nessie wrong yet in the matter of /. s, d. What- 
ever plans we decide on for the summer, we must take a 
flat between us next winter, and settle down to joint-stock 
housekeeping. It would be an economy in the end.^^ 

And an economy, no doubt, joint-stock housekeeping 
would prove — to Major and Mrs. Pinto! 


CHAPTER XVI. 

TO MONTE CARLO. 

I HAVE said that Mrs. Dormer^s weekly reception bids 
fair for popularity; it comprises more than the usual ele- 
ments of success to-day. Two or three professional mus- 
ical artists who gracefully keep themselves in the back- 
ground in order that the amateurs shall shine; a young 
English lord, celebrated by his political pamphlets, d la 
Bradlaugh; an Austrian count with delicate Van Dyck 
fingers, a hectic flush, and a zither; some art-critics; a 
well-known, bare-throated, much- jeweled Spanish duke; an 
Italian poet, whose best meal of the day is made at the five 


116 


A BALLEOOM REPEAT A XCE. 


clock tea-tables; of intellectual ladies; a big, but well- 
thawed Oxford don; and three or four of the j)rettiest En- 
glish women in 'Nice. 

The reception is a success, and Joyce, whose face and 
manner are fuller of brightness than usual, brings tones 
such as she never brought before from the strings of Stradi- 
varius. When all is over, however, when the last guest 
has departed, and the somber January twilight fills the 
room, the poor child sinks with weary relief into a chair be- 
side the olive-wood fire and gazes into its ruddy depths with 
tired, aching eyes. 

Carefully studying her daughter from the opposite chim- 
ney-corner, herself in shadow, Mrs. Dormer discerns that 
her cheek is of mortal pallor, the attitude of her limbs 
nerveless; a hollow, worn look is about her temples. A lit- 
tle time more, if she continue to make downward progress 
like this, and Joyce will be a girl no longer. Eestless stir- 
rings of vain passion, regrets beyond the reach of self-inter- 
est, beyond the power of will, are already doing their dreary 
work on outline and complexion. 

A little time more — Mrs. Dormer realizes the fact with a 
start — and she might wake, some fine morning, to find her- 
self the mother of an oldish daughter, if hapjDily, next 
Easter — 

Joyce breaks the silence abrujptly, in a voice that rings 
almost with harshness through the refined, violet-scented 
room : 

Mother, how tired one gets of art and ai’t-talk, and cul- 
tivated people, altogether, does one not.^^^ 

Mrs. Dormer answers in her most level, most evasive 
tone : 

I fancy our little party was a success, Joyce. Our so- 
cialist lord really gave us some socialist invectiye. Dear 
old Filippo Filippi recited only one poem on the wrongs of 
Italy, but recited it well. Our Austrian's Van Dyck fingers 
were delightful on the zither. And as to you, Joyce — 

I surpassed myself, mamma. My playing was like that 
of Joachim in his youth, with a touch of Neruda in her 
prime. My looks were those of a Saint Cecilia. A bit of 
mimosa that fell from my hair was distinctly precious. Un- 
fortunately, these sugared things do not improve by keep- 
ing. I was told last winter at another afternoon party, here 
in Nice, that my head was like an abstraction of Fra Angel- 


A BALLEOOM REPEI^TAi^'CE. 


117 


ico^s, nay, even like a saitit upon a gold ground of Cima- 
bue^si The same discriminative critic, in rather more 
affected accents, told me the same thing to-day. Ought I 
to feel flattered, do you think 

Mrs. Dormere skips nimbly away from the subject of in- 
tellectual tea-parties. 

You are physically overtaxed, child. You too 
much emotion into your playing. That is the danger of the 
violin. Eminent medical men have told me so. To jflay 
as you have done to-day involves a state of ‘ nerve-storm,^ 
for which the performer has to pay dearly afterward. And 
we have so much to get through this evening, Mrs. Dor- 
mer consults a tiny set of tablets that hang from her waist- 
belt— Lady Joan Majendie^’s dinner; Mrs. Fitzi^atrick^s 
tableaux vivants; the Countess of Cairngorm^s seance — 
With a freshly-imported medium from hJ'ew York, and 
entirely novel effects in the way of spirit-rappings and lime- 
light. What a programme of pleasure ! First, the world. ^ ^ 
The world! In Lady Joan Maendie’s house 
Yes, mother. These suave, serious parties, with their 
wines and plats, and pet dignitaries and unctuous talk, are 
the very acme of worldliness. Then the flesh. Then the — ^ ^ 
My love 1^^ 

Mamma, I am in no mood for any of it. I am sick, 
sick at heart to-night, weary, to desperation. 

And in truth there is a white, fixed look round her lij^s 
that Mrs. Dormer knows; a look with which Mrs. Dormer 
grew unpleasantly famihar at the time of Eoger Tryan^s 
dismissal. 

If you are really overdone, Joyce, we will give ujd our 
engagements — nothing can be easier than to send excuses 
to all these people — and spend a quiet evening by ourselres. 
See,^^ says Mrs. Dormer, drawing a letter, cheerfully, from 
her pocket; I have something of a very important and 
very pleasant nature to consult you about. ’ You know that 
I heard from John Farintyre this morning?^ ^ 

Yes, mamma. 

The nearer they get to Easter the more does Joyce 
relegate the Farintyre correspondence to her mother. 

‘‘ Well, he wants me to find out your tastes, clandestinely, 
j^oor fellow, about the resetting of some family diamonds. 
One of the best London houses has furnished j)atterns, 


118 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


Avliicli he incloses^ and — My dear Joyce^ are you listening 
to a single word that I sa}^, or are you not?^^ 

Mrs. Dormer has crossed to her daughter's side. She 
stands there^ John Farintyre's letter, the diamonds from 
one of the best London houses, between her hands. 

For a moment or two Joyce remains dumb, motionless;' 
then she starts quickly to her feet, such a blaze of color, of 
warmth, of eager, passionate longing, overspreading her 
tired face as makes her more than lovely. 

Mamma, dearest, you have been very good to me all 
my life, and I — have given you nothing but anxiety in re- 
turn. That is the usual debtor and creditor account, I 
suppose, between ]Darents and children. You are all good- 
ness now. You wish, for my own sake, that I should be 
married, find a worthy husband in poor Mr. Farintyre, 
settle down, as other girls do, take an interest in my dia- 
monds and my visiting-list, and be content. And I — 
mother, I will tell you the truth — I fret more over the hap- 
piness which I have lost, every day I live. When I saw 
Eoger Tryan this morning, in the companionship,'’^ says 
the girl, with miserable emphasis, of his f riends, I knew 
that, were he to raise a finger, to-morrow I would be his 
wife, I would follow him— ay, to the uttermost ends of the 
world — 

Joyce 

Oh, it is humiliating — shameful. I know everything 
you would say beforehand. You can not blush for my 
weakness more than I blush for it myself. Still, it is so. 
If sometimes I find myself thinking unawares of the sweet- 
ness there might be in life, I am really thinking of him. 
If I dream at night that my wedding-day has come, that I 
am taking oaths of love and faith b^efore the altar, Eoger 
Tryan — not the other — is at my side. 

‘‘ All this is too painful. 

Poor Mrs. Dormer, in truth, looks and feels as though 
earth, this excellent little planet that holds banking firms, 
titled persons, diamond necklaces, John Farintyres, were 
crumbling beneath her feet. 

The more painful because it is a fact. However, 
you need not be afraid for me/^ adds Joyce hurriedly. 

The worst is over. Considering that I have had 
strength to live through the last two years, I am not likely 
to die of a broken heart now. Not likely to die, and still 


A BALLROOM REPENTAis'CE. 


119 


—Oh, mother! taking me in kindest pity, and knowing, as 
only you can, what a wreck my life is, will you grant me a 
favor to-night 

Joyce, do not look at me like that. Of course 1 will 
grant you any favor you choose to ask. You want to send 
excuses do Lady Joan, to the other people. It shall be 
done. You want — yes, dear child, I read your thoughts — 
to go away from Nice. We will start for Eome immediate- 
ly. Our coming here was a mistake. It can be set straight 
at the very small cost of paying one month ^s rent of this 
a23artment. Naturally you are distressed at having to wit- 
ness such a scene as came before our eyes to-day. You 
would like — 

I would like, mamma,^^ cries Joyce with ashen, plead- 
ing face, to go over to Monte Carlo to-night. I have 
heard you say often that Monte Carlo was a thing to be 
studied, a scene to be looked at, as we look at Pompeii or 
Herculaneum, without ethical bias — Well, and now I ask 
you, as I never asked anything before in my life, to take 
me there 

The request, set down in black and white, may seem cold 
enough; made by Joyce with voice, eyes, lips, all quivering 
at passioiTs white heat, even Mrs. Dormer melts — not 
without the sanction of reason. Persons accustomed to 
the sick will tell you how, in certain maladies, a patient, 
fever-tossed and distraught, has been known to dream of 
an herb or drug ignored by physicians that shall be his 
cure. Who can say that some kindred instinct is not w^ork- 
ing in Joyce^s sick hearc, that the truest stroke of j^olicy 
may not be to humor her in her whim? 

Would you wound yourself voluntarily, Joyce? Dear 
Lady Joan, from a sense of duty, has made inquiries about 
a most painful subject. Five evenings a week, it is said, 
these terrible Pintos spend at Monte Carlo! Surely I need 
not add more. You can not wish for a repetition of this 
morning^s scene — this morning ^s scene, heightened by all 
the wretched accessories of Monte Carlo? 

I wish to visit the place to-night, mother. . From be- 
ginning to end of our music this afternoon, Stradivarius 
seemed to be giving me one messa^^e, pressing upon me one 
piece of advice, ‘ Monte Carlo. Go to Monte Carlo. I heard 
the words in major and in minor, spoken by Beethoven and 
Mozart and Spohr! Oh, mamma, can it be possible that 


120 


A BALLEOOM REPENTANCE. 


to-night may be a turning-point, not for 'my outward life — 
that, of course, is settled — but for my heart, my peace? If 
there be a chanee, a possibility, of my getting into a better 
road, is it not worth the trial?^^ 

Mrs. Dormer looks obdurate — sure sign that ifc is Mrs. 
Dormer^’s intention to surrender. 

The scheme is quite too wild. See how late it is, 
Joyce. ISlearly six already. 

The ^ gamblers train goes at half past seven, mam- 
ma. I have learned these wicked things through some of 
our unctuous friends^ denunciation of them. 

And our engagements? If Lady Joan Majendie should 
hear — 

I can not see that we must shape our lives to please 
Lady Joan Majendie. Lady Joan has been to Monte Carlo 
on errands of proselytism. Who shall say that you and I, 
mother, may not make some convert to-night?^ ^ 

But for you to be seen there, alone — I mean with s*o 
inefficient a duenna as myself Little Mrs. Dormer 
glances disparagingly at her own over-youthful image in the 
mirror. It would simply not be respectable for us, un- 
23rotected, to show our faces on such a scene. 

Of course it woulcT not!^^ cries Joyce. It behooves 
us, therefore, to take a jDrotector. Where could we find 
better security than in the white locks of Filippo Filippi? 
You know that our poor poet, if he had the means, would 
go with us to any part of Europe. Ah, mamma — with 
quick, unwonted effusion she snatches her mother^s hand, 
she raises it to her lips — shall I ever be able to repay you 
for your goodness? Shall I ever forget: your unselfishness 
in allowing me to do this thing 

I — I wish one knew whether it was correct to wear a 
bonnet or a hat!^'’ murmurs the elder lady, softly troubled. 
If the very temptation of Eve came to a woman of Mrs. 
Dormer^s type, her perj)lexity would be one of taste. 
Would it be correct to accept that apple from a compara- 
tive stranger, or* would it not? 


CHAPTER XXII. 

SOLD. 

The ^preparations for their evening adventure are gone 
' through with feverish haste by Joyce. Notes of excuse are 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


121 


written and dispatched; Filippo Filippi is told,^on a tiny 
sheet of pink 23apei% in Joyce’s prettiest Italian, that two 
forlorn clonzella mean, in less than an hour’s time, to 2 )ut 
themselves under his chivalrous escort. Then comes a 
harder task for the girl’s overwrought powers — she must 
eat; Mrs. Dormer, whose sense of common j)lace bodily 
comfort is always in its right place, averring that, what- 
ever else be doubtful, an improvised dinner before they 
start is essential. 

Human beings are exceedingly complicated machines, 
wound up by putting food in their mouths. With a jDros- 
pect of unusual strain before one, let cold chicken and a 
glass of good Orvieto be taken as the best possible source of 
moral strength. Let the machine be wound up! Joyce 
strives bravely to obey. She drinks a glass of wine, she 
forces down morsel after morsel of food, feeling as though 
each must choke her and prove the last. Then she dresses, 
her mother’s finer intuitions, having solved the imjiortant 
question of fit attire for Monte Carlo by gas-light — beaver 
hats, tied under the chin like those worn by Jane Austen’s 
heroines; black dresses, black gloves, no ornaments, above 
all, no veils. A veil worn under doubtful circumstances,” 
said Mrs. Dormer, may be construed into an excuse. An 
excuse is a self-accusation. It is one of those small matters 
about which a woman of delicate feeling can not be too solic- 
itous. ” Ten minutes later they are making their way along 
the narrow, ill-lighted street in which Filip 2)0 Filip^Di lives.' 

“ If Filippo should be out, should never have received 
our note!” Joyce suggests this as they wait inside the porte- 
cochere of the poet’s house, a slow-footed old 2 )ortress hav- 
ing gone up to the fourth etage in search of him. 

Worst still, if there should be a Signora Fili2)23i,” add- 
ed Mrs. Dormer placidly. 

For courageous ladies hunting lions, with a view to after- 
noon exhibition, are wholly ignorant of the lion’s domestic 
comings and goings. Such cambric as the poet displays 
above his surtout is irreproachable. Xotes sent through 
the post to a certain address command his presence. Fiiqapo 
FilqDpi and his recitals are to be met at all the best ” 
houses in Mce. With what further details as to wife or 
fortune need the mind of a giver of parties, a purveyor of 
celebrities, be troubled? 

It there be a Signora Filippi, and she say nay — a him- 


122 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAlSrCE. 


dred times nay — we will go to Monte Carlo cries Joyce^ 
with nervous haste. ^‘Absurd to think that two strong- 
minded Englishwomen could not, under all circumstances, 
protect themselves! Why, with such a manner as I can 
put on when I choose, and the girl draws her slender 
throat aloft, might pass quite well, little mother, for 
your chaperon. 

The contingency, however, does not arrive; the signora 
of Mrs. Dormer'’ s imagination exists not. Ere the j^ortress 
has had time to shuffle down the hundred steps leading 
from the fourth story, Filippo himself appears upon the 
scene. Filippo, fur-cloaked, shivering with true Southern 
chilliness, at having to face a breath of evening air, but 
gallantly ready to accompany two pretty women to any part 
of Europe — so long, of course, as the price of his railway 
ticket be paid out of the pretty women^s pockets! 

Filippo Filippi, content, like many another Italian 
patriot, to live out of the country for which, in rhyme, he 
is ready to give his blood, is a tall, grandly built Florentine 
of fifty-five or sixty; a man, every inch a poet — white- 
bearded, eagle-eyed, with a. Titanesque head set finely on 
his shoulders, with just a fiavor of garlic pervading his 
courtly presence. The fur on Filippo Filippi ^s cloak may 
be past its j)rime; he wears a pair of oft-cleaned lemon- 
colored gloves, a pair of antique-polished shoes, a white 
cravat of the fashion of thirty years ago; and still the 
nameless look which, lacking a better word, we call distinc- 
tion, is his. 

Even among the cosmopolitan rabble that at this hour 
throngs the Nice platform, men feel inclined to ask the 
shabby old poem’s name. Men feel inclined to do more 
than ask the name of the two English ladies with their re- 
fined fair faces, their quiet dress and demeanor, wl;oni the 
shabby old poet accompanies. 

Let us hide ourselves away, mother, whispers Joyce, 
when they at length succeed in finding an empty carriage^ 

Make Filippo Filippi understand that we are spectators, 
not actors in the scene. Persuade him, above all, to speak 
no word of French or English.-’^ She adds this quickly, 
and with a backward glance toward the station. I have 
a suspicion that Major and Mrs. Pinto are close behind us. 
If we do nox betray ourselves by our speech we may react 
Monte Carlo unnoticed. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


123 


The ^warning is given only just in time. Barely have 
they taken their places in the further, least-lighted com- 
partment, barely has Mrs. Dormer whispered a significant 
hint to Filippo Filippi, when a loud voice and laugh are 
heard approaching along the platform. A moment later, 
and Mrs. Pinto, with bangles rattling and ribbons fiowing 
— Mrs. Pinto, her husband, her dog, and Eoger Tryan, 
come to a halt immediately beside the door of the carriage 
that holds Joyce Dormer. 

Eoom here?^^ asks Pinto, putting in his head with his 
air of easy familiarity. That^s all right, Tryan — 
]S"essie! Here you are. Empty carriage, or only a moun- 
seer or two.^^ For here Major Pinto catches sight of 
Filippo Filippi^s distinctly un-British head. ' Come, 
jump in.^'’ 

But Mrs. Pinto hesitates. ^ Dogs and persons under 
twenty-one years of age ^ not admitted to the gaming-tables 
by a paternal administration,^^ she observes iDlayfully. 

What in the world are we going to do with Mufti 

Yon should have thought of that before you let Mufti 
follow you, my love,^^ cries Major Pinto. 

Whatever the real state of things between this husband 
and this wife — and that it is a volcanic state, all such per- 
sons as know them well can certify — the surface of the 
crater bloometh greenly. You would say the Pinto house- 
hold thought but with one mind, acted but with one inten- 
tion, so nicely do Hessie^s little whims and fancies and for- 
getfulness piece in with the foregone conclusions of^lier 
lord. 

^^Aswe are here,^^ resumes that gentleman, ‘Mt is a 
shame you should be disappointed. You and Tryan had 
better go on to Monte Carlo together, Hess, and ITl. be a 
blessed martyr — take Mufti home. What do you say, 
Tryan? You doiiT mind looking after Mrs. Pinto for one 
evening?^ ^ 

For one evening! What has Eoger Tryan^s whole bored 
life sunk to but ^ booking after Mrs. Pinto — on race- 
courses, in public ball-rooms, at theaters, in every jDlace, on 
every occasion, when Major Pinto^s time and talents can 
be elsewhere better employed. 

“ The ‘ one evening ^ must be a short two hours, says 
lYessie, her foot upon the step. ^^Our j^ension gives a 
dance this evening. Mr. Tryan, you do not forget, I hope. 


124 * 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAR'CE. 


that your company is requested by the guests at the ^onsion 
Potpourri. You are comings of course?^’ 

Tryaii answers with the stereotyped delighted that a 
man pushed into such a corner has no choice save to utter; 
entering the carriage, he takes a corner place opposite the 
wife of his friend. 

But his tone is cold; so Joyce, in her fast-beating heart, 
decides; his manner listless. All the old bright look of 
youth and interest has died, although Roger Tryan is some 
years under thirty, from out his face. 

That he has sunk to a lower level may be fact; He is 
not content there. And, oh! inexplicable human nature, 
the suspicion of his discontent half constitutes a hope in 
Joyce Dormer ^s breast. 

Nessie Pinto has all the instability of manner that char- 
acterizes women of her class : at one minute is high-pitched, 
and self-conscious; at the next, noisily familiar; at the 
next, affectedly nervous. This horrible mistral! She will 
certainly get neuralgia if she remain exposed to it. Fancy 
having to appear at our pension ball with anything so quite 
too awful as a swelled face. If Mr. Tryan please, they will 
change places. And then, the places being changed, Nessie 
bethinks her that if she travel with her back to the engine 
she will have a sick headache. And then, going back, 
with clash of bangles and rustle of silks, to her first position, 
her thoughts revert to Mufti. 

For what object but the attracting of attention (a pretty 
wofnan with a lap-dog being a degree more noticeable than 
a pretty woman without one) does poor Mufti exist? Pinto, 
in his rough fashion, cares for the creature, and is repaid 
by Mufti with lavish usurj of love. Hessie, when once she 
quits the foot-lights, cares for nothing, will indeed vent any 
little social failure or disappointment upon the first object 
— generally Mufti — that comes across her. 

Be sure, Pinto, whatever you do, you see to my dear 
darling^s sujDper. A minced chicken^s leg, if they can find 
him one, and plenty of salt. Promise me sacredly you will 
not be ofi to your horrid whist club and forget him. 

Major Pinto does not play a rubber of whist, certainly 
does not enter his club at this hour of the evening, once 
during the season. But Nessie is fictitious to the finger- 
tips, compelled, even before no larger audience than Roger 
Tryan, to say the thing that is not. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAis^CE. 


125 


That is right/'’ Pinto having sworn fidelity as regards 
the minced chicken'’s leg and the salt. Now, have I 
got my scent-bottle? Those Monte' Carlo rooms are so 
excruciatingly hot. Ah, here it is. Mr. Try an, please, 
like a good creature, take care of my scent-bottle for me. 
And my purse? Surely, I can never have forgotten that. 
And Nessie goes through a joantomime of searching in her 
dress and jacket pockets. Pinto, Pinto, my dear, donT 
go away. No Monte Carlo for me to-night, unless you are 
game to lend me half a dozen naps. I have left my purse 
behind. 

Major Pinto^s lips take the form of whistling. He but- 
tons up his coat. 

You know I never encourage you in your pleasant 
vices, Nessie. If you gamble, it must be of your own pin- 
money.^-’ Major Pinto’s wife’s pin-money! Haven’t 
you any spare bracelets or rings about you?” he asks jo- 
cosely. The croupiers know us pretty well by sight. 
They might allow you to stake in kind. ” 

On this, Nessie Pinto bends over to Eoger Tryan; with 
a sujDplicating clas^^ of her gloved hands, with a plaintive 
apiDeal in her belladonnaed eyes, she whispers a word or two 
in his ear. 

Stand banker? Why, of course I can. Ridiculous for 
you to think of going back. ” So replies a voice that sends 
ihe blood hurrying through Joyce Dormer’s veiiis. I 
would not advise you to endanger your luck by even a tem- 
porary loan of Pinto’s napoleons. Good-night, old 
fellow. ’ ’ And the two men shake hands : little does either 
of them reck that it shall be for the last time! ‘‘Look 
well after your points at whist, and don’t forget Mufti’s 
supper. Mrs. Pinto and I feel in the vein. We are going 
to recoup ourselves at last for all old losses.” 

The guard at this moment approaches; he is just prepar- 
ing to shut the door of the carriage when Mrs. Pinto jumps 
up, and stretching her head forth through the window, 
calls vehemently to her husband.-. One thing is still 
Avanted — a kiss from Mufti. She would be sure of ill-luck 
did she depart without the dearest creature’s caress. She 
must have it! And, indeed, a scene, an affectation, any- 
thing that shall bring her into notice, although it be but 
the notice of guai’ds and railway servants, is a necessity to 
this woman’s tawdry, restless, never-satisfied soul. 


126 


A BALLROOM REPEis TAi^^CE. 


Mufti, emhrasse moiy^’ she shrieks in fluent, vilely 
accented French. Souliaite la 'bonne chance a ta 
Mamaiiy petit brebis,^^ 

And then Pinto must hold the animal aloft for Nessie to 
kiss. 

In palmier, more respectable days, Mufti, an actor of 
merit, took the leading part in a troupe of strolling dog 
performers, scaled ladders, played cards, smoked his ciga- 
rette, fought his duels as gravely as any gentleman in 
France. Sunk though he be in estate, some glimmering of 
self-respect would seem to linger in Mufti^’s conscience. 
He struggles, rolls his eyes, and cunningly resents the 
indignity put upon him by attempting to lick the rose- 
bloom from his mistresses cheek. 

Xessie Pinto starts back, using a tolerably blunt English 
exiDletive; then, recovering her jDresence of mind, she in- 
sists that Mufti shall shake hands with Tryan. 

Bonne la patte a Monsieur, mon amour. Yes, indeed, 
Mr. Tryan, you must. I will take no refusal. Whoever 
loves me loves my dog. Surely, after that, you will not 
have the heart to slight jioor Mufti 

And so on, ad nauseam ; the usual tone of such women 
when they believe their power of fascination to be unlimit- 
ed, and merits patience a thing of adamant. 

Sick and chill, Joyce Dormer draws further back in her 
corner of the carriage. 

‘‘We ought never to have conie,^^ whispers her mother, 
with a tenderness that almost wrings a sob from the girPs 
overcharged breast. “ Change places quietly with me, 
dear child. You will at least not see the lady of the jDarty 
from this side.""^ 

But Joyce does not move. The heroic treatment which 
her own free-will has prescribed, shall be carried out, she 
resolves, without let or hinderance. They are here, on 
their road to Monte Carlo, with one object; to- see Eoger 
Tryan among the associates, the interests which occupy nis 
life. Why seek to disguise the bitterness of such a 
draught? Is it not good for her to look her full, listen her 
keenest, and derive such quick, sharp benefit from the 
tonic as she may? 

Mrs. Pinto^s lips continue to ^nile, she blows kisses from 
her finger-tips, alternately to Mufti and to her husband, 
until the train gets well in motion. The moment they 


A BALLROOM REPENTAi^CE. 


127 


shoot forth from the ISIice station into darkness, she throws 
herself back, with an ominous jerk and rustle, folds her 
braceleted arms across her chest, and pouts. Roger Tryan, 
also, leans back in his corner; he gazes, with the expression 
of a man whose thoughts are elsewhere occupied, at the 
lamp in the center of the carriage. 

Things go on in this pseudo- tranquil fashion until they 
are about midway between the little stations of Villef ranche 
and Beaulieu. Then, like the sudden upleaping flame of 
an olive-wood fire, does Nessie Pinto^s temper burst forth. 
She gathers herself, morally and physically, together; she 
bends over toward her companion, the hard, coarsely cut 
lips a-quiver, the mean brow lowering. 

‘ ^ That might have been an awkward meeting with the 
Dormers on the Promenade des Anglais to-day, might it 
not? Brought me back, rather, to the old times at Langen 
Waldstein when Lady Joan Majendie — 

Roger Tryan interrupts her with a quick expostulating 
whisper. 

Pray be guarded, Mrs. Pinto! Remember how a name 
travels. Remember that there are other persons in the 
carriage besides ourselves.'’^ 

Stuff' and nonsense rejoins Nessie, in the sincerity of 
her ill-humor abandoning foreign affectation for familiar 
vernacular. As if a trio of dowdy Italians could matter 
to me.^^ 

FilqDpo Filippi is whispering pretty things in liquid 
lingua Toscana about the blueness of the night and of the 
signorina^s eyes — pretty things, to which Joyce, feverish 
and pre-absorbed, gives scanty heed. 

I am not in the least ashamed of anything I do or 
say,^^ proceeds Nessie. Although you, yes, you, Mr. 
Tryan, she passes a bit of embroidered cambric, with a 
furtive attempt at pathos, across her eyelashes, are so 
mortally ashamed of me."^^ 

Ashamed repeats Roger gently. ^^If you meant 
this in earnest, it would be equivalent to telling me that I 
am the most ungrateful fellow living. What should I be, 
at this moment, but for your kindness, your friendship 
Very much better off than he is, socially and financially, 
could the mists only clear from before Roger Tryan ^s eyes, 
and enable him to see the truth! 


128 


A BALLEOOM EEPENTAKCE. 


Whose hand but yours was held bravely forth to me at 
a time when fortune was blindest 

Ah, the pang in Joyce ^s miserable heart! 

What possible cause can I have for feeling ashamed of 
such old and tried friends as yourself, and — the conclu- 
sion of the sentence does not flow with perfect readiness 
from Tryan^s lips, and Pinto? 

Nessie breaks forth with incx’easing bitterness: I am 
not talking about Pinto at all. I am talking of myself, 
only. Can you look me in the face, Mr. Try an, and de- 
clare, on your word of honor, that you felt no shame — you 
were not embarrassed — when we came across that Dormer 
girl and her mother this morning? I have had no oppor- 
tunity of asking you the question sooner. 

Eoger Tryan is silent. 

‘^The ladies vouchsafed no recognition of their old 
friend, jDursues Nessie scoffingly. But I donT know 
whether the blame must be laid altogether at my door. 
What do you say ?^^ 

I say,^^ replies Tryan, warming, that there is one 
subject — just one in the world — ujdoii which we shall do 
wisely to agree to differ. There is one name — 

She interrupts him with stinging emphasis: 

One name which Mr. Eoger Tryan will not hear pro- 
faned by such an one as Nessie Pinto! And there is one 
pale-faced, cold-eyed girl whom Eoger Tryan can not meet, 
even now, two long years after she jilted him, with the 
common, honest, self-respect of a man. How did I know 
them on the Promenade to-day? What instinct could have 
told me that those two atrociously dressed women were 
Mrs. and Miss Dormer, if your face had not betrayed you?^^ 
Eoger Tryan attempts a tone of banter, not too success- 

^ Ladies are quick at this sort of divination. The man 
of science can build up a megatherium from a single bone. 
A woman can evolve a character, a scene, a drama out of 
a bonnet-ribbon! Some detail in the ^atrocious dress ^ 
might have helped you to a theory, Mrs. Pinto, even if the 
Nice arrival list had not put you in possession of a fact.^^ 

I am not at all in a humor for joking,^^ cries Nessie, 
uncertain in her inmost soul as to whether Tryan laughs 
with, or at her. ‘‘ And if I had read the names in the 
Arrival List, the subject concerned me too little to give it 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAIS'CE. 


129 


a second thought/^ This is the exact style of Nessie 
Pinto’s syntax. Take it which way you like, you were 
embarrassed, Mr. Tryan, just as you always are embar- 
rassed when any of your old set come across you in my 
society.” 

Don’t you think it is ungenerous — late, somewhat, in 
the day for you to make these reproaches?” 

I do not. • I think the want of generosity is yours; and 
I mean, as regards the Dormers, to know what ground I 
stand upon. The next time we meet those j^eoiDte in a 
public place, it may be Miss Joyce Dormer’s whim to rec- 
ognize you. Am I to walk discreetly on with Mufti, or 
what?” 

Prompt, decisive, comes Koger Tryan’s answer: 

I am afraid, Mrs. Pinto, the contingency is too remote 
to calculate upon.” 

Afraid?” 

Certain, then, if you prefer the word. You remember 
what Thackeray wrote about engaged young ladies in the 
‘ Newcomes ^ They ought, like the jDictures in the exhi- 
bition, to have little green labels pinned on their backs 
with Sold ” written on them. It would prevent 
further troubling and haggling,” said Ethel. And then 
at the end of the season the owners could carry us home.’^ ’ 
The little green label, from what I hear, should be some- 
where visible on Miss Dormer, and, next Easter, the 
owner,” adds Koger Tryan with a certain change of voice, 
‘Ms to carry her home from Italy.” 

“ If Mr. Farintyre remains constant, as Miss Joyce Dor- 
mer’s suitors have not always done,” says Xessie bitterly. 
“ All these speculations, remember, however interesting in 
themselves, are no answer to my question. If we meet 
Mrs. and Miss Dormer again in the public walks, if this 
chit of a girl sees fit to recognize you — ” 

But Nessie Pinto stops short; stops, with Tryan’s face, 
white as marble, confronting her, with his grasjD laid, sud- 
denly, heavily upon her wrist. 

“ Speak Miss Dormer’s name with respect, if you must 
speak it at all!” 

Though the strength of passion is in Roger’s voice, it has 
sunk to a whisper. Only the morbidly strained condition 
of Joyce’s senses enables her to catch his meaning clearly. 

“ I do not wish to quarrel with you, Mrs. Pinto. You 


130 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


should know that pretty well by this time. But^, by , 

if you mention Miss Dormer before me you must see that 
the terms in which you speak of her are fitting 

111 this moment^ Nessie Pinto^ we may well believe, 
■undergoes a worse sensation than that of common fear. 
Outwardly she does not flinch. A woman who has passed 
a dozen years at the side of Major Pinto must, by hard 
training, have gained — not heroic courage, perhaps, but a 
tough physical callousness, tolerably well calculated to take 
its place. 

She even brings out a discordant, short stage-laugh. 

‘‘ Excuse my levity, Mr. Try an! The tallest Adelphi 
tragedy never does more than set my teeth on edge. In 
the days that are no more I donT know that you always 
wanted me to weigh my words in speaking of this very 
sacred subject 

Tryan does not answer. 

And I insist — as I have a right to do — upon your re- 
plying to my question. If, as fate has thrown us all 
together, here in Nice, you should meet Miss Dormer when 
you are in my society — ■’^ 

If I should meet Miss Dormer, in any place, or in any 
society, I should Avait — have I not waited for more than 
two years — hoping it might be her ivliim to recognize me. 
You know, or ought to know this pretty well already, Mrs. 
Pinto. 

And, having thus spoken, Roger Tryan loosens his hold 
curtly on Nessie^s Avrist. Then turning aAvay, he leans his 
face toward the ojDen AvindoAv, through which the electric 
lights of Monte Carlo begin to whiten. 

“ Mr. Roger Tryan would wait hoping it might be Joyce 
Dormer’s whim to recognize him,” repeats Nessie, Avith 
sullen, slow precision. ^^And I— might walk on with 
Mufti! Exactly. It is ahvays well that a delicate matter 
of this kind should be settled beforehand. I — might Avalk 
on Avith Mufti! We understand each other to a nicety.” 

And, after this, not another Avord is spoken in the rail- 
Avay carriage until the train stops at Monte Carlo. 


131 


A BALLKOOM REPENTANCE. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

BETWEEN THE LINES. 

Faites le jeu. Messieurs, Le jeuest fait, Uorvaau 
rouleau, To\it va aux Mllets, Tout va a la masse. Rien 
ne va plus, 

Half blinded by excess of glare after the soft outside 
darkness, Joyce Dormer finds herself listening to the 
croupier^s cries; a sad-hearted unit among the crowd of 
human creatures who press around the roulette-tables in the 
first gambling salle of Monte Carlo. 

Wiiat a crowd it is! Representatives of every class, of 
every nation in Europe, abjuring each other, it may be, in 
the spirit, but jostled together in the flesh until they form 
a mosaic than which not even the congregation in St. 
Peter^s at Easter can be more bizarre. 

A douce old Dorsetshire dean, straight- coated, clerical- 
hatted, in close juxtaposition with M. Zola^s last type of 
Parisian lioness. Sallow-cheeked, sunken-eyed prodigals, 
decaves in the fullest sense of that untranslated term, side 
by side with English girls, fresh in their teens. Hard- 
working thieves of business, who filch their substance 
straight out of other men^s pockets, together with those of 
a more delicate fiber — thieves who pick u|) such orjfiian 
stakes as careless players leave unprotected on the table, 
‘‘the brotherhood, according to Monte Carlo parlance, 
“ of St. Vincent of Paul.''^ Professional women gamblers, 
chiefly Teutonic, chiefly old, the last with faces that might 
serve as models to any new illustrator of Dante^s “ Infer- 
no needy wretches, many of them, content to play their 
six or eight hours a day, if, at the close, they be as many 
francs to the good. Young men hojoeful of mien, who 
intend to put on their one napoleon, and fly if they lose. 
A sprinkling of imperial Tartars; a well-known Irish 
countess; an Irish countesses husband. Jews from Genoa; 
hectic individuals from Mentone; Plymouth Brethren dis- 
tributing polyglot tracts; a New World authoress making 
notes for copy. Lastly, be-diamonded, in paste, out of all 
reason, her bracelets clanking, her lips clothed in their 


/ 


132 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


falsest smiles^ her black eyes alert, on the watch for the 
fall of cards, or of fortunes — Nessie Pinto. 

Clearly distinct among a sisterhood where paste brill- 
iants, false smiles, and clanking bracelets are the rule, 
Joyce Dormer sees this woman ere the first doorway is 
passed. DraTO by the queer magnetism which impels 
human beings toward the very thing which they would 
most shun, the girl approaches near enough, her hand 
rigidly clasped upon her mother^s arm, to catch the tones 
of Nessie^s ringing voice and harsh strident laugh. 

The evening is progressing, for Mrs. and Miss Dormer 
with their poet have lingered in the delicious freshness of 
the gardens. But Nessie Pinto stands, as j^et, an idle 
spectator, beside one of the roulette-tables. Eoger Tryan, 
in the second salle^ is trying his fortunes at trente-et-quar- 
ante; and Nessie, for her attendant, has Sir Dyse Totten- 
ham, that irresistible red-tape knight of sixty, whose but- 
toned Bond Street coat. Prince Eegent wig, purple face, 
and short portly figure are just as well known within the 
precincts of Monte Carlo as the croupiers or the chan- 
deliers. 

A wily 23layer at lifers game, as on this mimic battle-field 
of green baize, is Sir Dyse, an Achilles, vulnerable, finan- 
cially, at one point only, as Nessie Pinto right well knows 
— the point of vanity. 

Terrible things are whispered about your goings-on 
last night, she tells him reproachfully. After I left, 
you banked, in spite of all my warnings, with little Mrs. 
Scrope — little Mrs. Scrope is the prettiest woman between 
Marseilles and Florence — ‘‘and dropped your money 
royally. Now, if you would only throw in for another 
coiq:), pnt yourself, for once, under my safe wing^ I should 
take so much better care of you than Mrs. Scrope 

Nessie glances, as she pleads, into the withered face at 
her side; and a pleading glance of Nessie^s handsome eyes 
is, when she chooses, something worth encountering. But 
Sir Dyse melts not; he remarks with guarded gallantry, 
that he would shrink from implicating any one so charming 
and so ingenuous as Mrs. Pinto, in his ill-luck. 

“ If every one felt as I do, the term ‘ ill-luck would go 
out of use,^^ cries Nessie Pinto, briskly. “ Luck, however 
bad, must sooner or later change, and sensitively organized 
natures have an instinct for divining when. In that lies all 


A BALLROOM REPENTAJiTCE. 


133 


the secret. I feel^ though I could not reason about it, that 
I shall get on a run to-night. 

A pity, if you are in the vein, that Major Pinto is not 
here to reap the benefit of the inspiration. 

And Sir Dyse is sensible of a fiuttering sensation, not so 
much in his heart, as in the left breast-pocket where he 
carries his purse. 

^ Oh, Pinto was dining out. Have I not hinted that 
poetic license at all times comes easier than prose to Major 
Pinto ^s wife? We are in such an immense circle at Nice 
— it is only by dividing we can get through our engage- 
ments at all. Yes, Pinto was dining out; and Eoger 
Tryan — how his name, spoken as Nessie Pinto speaks it, 
jars on Joyce's ear! — Eoger Tryan was kind enough to 
escort me here." 

Sir Dyse makes her an old-fashioned little bow. 

‘ ‘ Mr. Eoger Tryan is hugely to be congratulated on his 
good fortune!" 

I wish I could agree with you," says Nessie, shaking 
her head. Pinto and I consider Mr. Eoger Tryan quite 
the most persistent loser we know. The fact is, you see* 
poor fellow, he has no beliefs. I am as broad ks most 
people, still, one must have some dogmatic weaknesses. " 

‘‘ Even at the gambling-tables of Monte Carlo?" chuckles 
Sir Dyse Tottenham. 

More here than elsewhere. You see this mysterious 
amulet I wear in my bracelet? It is a morsel of De 
Morigny's rope — the wretched little Frenchman," says 
Nessie, with the contempt minds of a certain order feel 
toward failure, ‘ ^ who hanged himself the other day. (And 
I kiiow it to be authentic! A good many forgeries are 
current, but Pinto loas on the sjjot at 07 ice.) Well, when- 
ever I wear my bracelet I am certain to win at roulette — 
though, of course, I would not tempt fate by wearing it too 
often." 

Your principles, madame, are above praise." 

At superstition I draw the line. No Auberglaube; no 
fetichism for me." Nessie inclines much toward airing 
words she does not rightly understand. I call it blind 
credulity, do not you, to back one number because you got 
it in exchange for your umbrella, or another because it 
was on the fiacre that took you to the Nice station?" 


134 


A BALLROOM REPEi^'TAlS’CE. 


I think I should call it a dogmatic weakness, Mrs. 
Pinto. 

‘‘ But I am above all that. Mj faiths are few but firm. 
This bracelet, I know, brings me luck at roulette, and so 
do certain among the croupiers at trente-et-quarante. 

Old Sir Dyse looks amused, as Nessie intends that he 
should feel. 

And what,^^ he asks, is the difference between faith 
and Aberglaube?^^ 

Faith with me is experience,^’ replies Mrs. Pinto grave- 
. ly. Nothing in creation would persuade me to stake 
at trente-et-quarante when that Eussian fellow, Kriloff, 
deals. I consider little Paul Joseph the luckiest croupier 
of the Administration. A^ou heard about the wonderful 
run last Saturday night? Eouge had made thirty-two, not 
a bad point, as you know; twenty-four had been dealt for 
noir, and then seven aces were laid down in succession, 
making noir the game with thirty-one. Well, I was back- 
ing noir. Sir Dyse,” says Nessie, her eyes aflame with in- 
terest, and little Paul Joseph, my good genius, was deal- 
ing. Imagine the feelings of the backers of rouge!” 

At the conclusion of her narrative, Nessie moves nearer 
the roulette-table, whither the gallantry of the ancient red- 
tape knight leaves him no choice but to follow. 

Another of my beliefs is that you should invariably 
begin jDlay with roulette,” she whispers amidst the Adonis- 
like tendrils of his wig. It rouses the faculties and clears 
the cobwebs from one’s brain before settling to the serious 
work of trente-efc-quarante. Shall we try our fortune to- 
gether, Sir Dyse? — start off with a humble joint napoleon, 
and resolve, as Pinto says, not to let our passions run away 
with us?” 

And Nessie’s talisman, the shred of suicide’s hemp, for 
a time would seem to work well. 

The joint napoleon is staked; they win, stake, win again. 
A heap of gold begins to mount, well guarded by the lady’s 
jeweled left hand. A cautious fire lights up her bistred 
eyes; the hard lines around her lips grow harder. Iron 
will, cool nerve, indomitable patience — qualities that under 
other ausjiices might have made a great and a true woman 
— are to be deciphered in this ugly moment on Nessie 
Pinto’s countenance. 

Trcni-cinq; noir imiKiir et manque,^ ^ cries the mo- 


A BALLKOOM REPEXTAKCE. 135 

notonous croupier voice. Trente-cinq; noir empair et 
passe, Trente-quatre; rouge pair et passe,'^^ 

Mrs. Dormer clings slirinkingly to FilipjDO Filippi^s arm. 

The whole scene is sickeningly painful. Looii straight 
at a face before us, Joyce; alas, ^t a face we know,^^ for 
they have now approached the trente-et-quarante table 
where Eoger Tryan, unconscious whose eyes are watching 
him, stakes his napoleons. What mean, what apathetic 
despair one sees written there! It is no place for you, my 
darling. 

‘‘ Mamma, answers the girl earnestly, every place is 
a place for an artist, that which in the world I most aspire 
to be. If there had been a Monte Carlo in Schumann ^s 
days, what a dark^companion picture to his ‘ Butterflies ^ 
might have been left to the world 1 Schumann would have 
let you hear the rippling of the wind among the roses and 
orange boughs outside, the hoarse ‘ Rien ne va plus ^ of the 
croupiers, the wEispers of the well-dressed ladies and gen- 
tlemen — yes, and the groan of the wretch who has lost his 
last napoleon, and carries his pistol in his breast-pocket! 
Do you think me so light, so cold,^^ pursued Joyce, with a 
flushing cheek, that I am unkindled by the pain, the 
tragedy, to which all this gas-light and tinsel and gilding 
form the drop-scene 

I think, says Mrs. Dormer cleverly, yet with the 
practical ignorance of human nature which characterizes so 
many of these half -clever, half -worldly w^omen — ^ ^ I think 
that if a sensitive, well-nurtured English girl wished to be 
•cured of an idle love fancy, she would look critically at her 
heroes face — I mean at the face of the man who was her 
hero once — when it is deformed by the meanest of all 
passions — gambling. ^ ^ 

“ And suppose that, in her eyes, it w^ere not deformed:'’'' 
exclaims Joyce. Suppose she could read between the 
lines, could recognize, not apathy, not despair, but the 
weary discontent of a man too good for his surroundings:"^ 

“ I spoke of a girl possessing common sense; a girl de- 
termined to see that which she very well know^s must exist. "" 

Joyce Dormer turns sadly away. 

Alas! she has looked only too critically at the face of him 
who was her hero once, and in the look has gone back to 
the whole sweet passionate romance of her life! Her first 
meeting with Eoger at the opera, when Carmen, mia 


136 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


Carmen adorata^^ rang through her heart; the London 
halls, at which night after night, she used, through curi- 
ously persistent mischance, to lose her programme, and was 
reduced to telling Mr. Tryan, he might decide as he liked 
about her dances the, hour when, amidst slanting yellow 
sunshine and call of birds and sway of branches, their talk 
first wandered from half-jesting sentiment into the border- 
land of passion. She has gone back to it all, and knows 
that never, no, not even in the morning of their too brief 
courtship, did she love Eoger Tryan more utterly than at 
this moment. 

— o 

PART IL 


CHAPTER I. 

IN LUCK. 

Faites votre'jeu. Messieurs, lejeu est fait, 

Trente-et-quarante, as the readers of witty Carle des 
Perrieres know, stands first in the regard of men who solicit 
fortune, oftentimes who find ruin, by the shortest road. 

At roulette, a modest speculator may put down his five- 
franc piece and, losing it, depart. At trente-et-quarante 
it is a rigorous law that the stake be gold. Roulette is 
the favorite game of the passing crowd — ^the larger number 
of the players, indeed, stand while they stake; the favorite 
game of ladies, of very young men, of Spaniards and 
Italians; a kind of lottery, abounding in frivolous excite- 
ment and surprise, but inferior, say competent judges, as 
regards the poignancy of its lioiies and fears, to trente-et- 
quarante. 

Has not M. Carle written of trente-et-quarante that it is 
the most perfect macliine a emotion to which civiliza- 
tion, standing on the last steps of time, has reached? 

About twenty players are seated around the table at 
which Roger Tryan, with the tired air of a man who is at 
heart no gambler, stakes his napoleons. The majority of 
these persons are absorbed in the immediate fall of the 
cards. A few, with hands clasj^ed above their foreheads, 
are painfully studying mysterious sets of tablets that lio 


A BALLROOM REPE^TTANCE. 


137 


beside them; greasy sibylline leaves, upon which patheti- 
cally long labyrinths of pen-pricks denote the supposed 
progress of the gamers chances. 

The green cloth is covered with rouleaux and Bank of 
France notes. Not a sound is to be heard but the rippling 
breeze among roses and orange boughs outside, and the 
unmoved mechanical voice of Paul Joseph, the dealer: 

“ Faites le jeu. Messieurs, le jeu est fait, TJor va aux 
rouleaux. Tout va aux billets. Tout va a la masse. Rien 
ne va plus, 

After this official Rien ne va plus,’ ^ thQXQ comes a 
sufficiently long pause. Then, with stolid indifference, 
the dealer in succession calls out the two scores aloud : 

Huit, Quatre, Rouge gagne, Couleur perd,” 

And down fall the rakes, drawing in rouleaux, napoleons, 
notes, with fine professional catholicity, to the winning 
table. 

A pile of gold lies at Roger Tryan^s side. The bystand- 
ing spectators begin to watch him narrowly. Some, even, 
of his fellow-players, glance toward his winnings with an 
approach at interest. 

‘‘ You are in luck — little Paul Joseph is dealing, whis- 
pers Mrs. Pinto across his shoulder. For Nessie, deserting 
Sir Dyse Tottenham and roulette, has made her way to the 
trente-et-quarante. ‘‘ You are in luck, and I — am bank- 
rupt. Dear, childish, old Sir Dyse insisted upon staking 
for me, and of course lost everything. I could only make 
my escape by promising to dance with him (not a waltz, I 
trust) at our pension ball to-night.'^'’ 

Take my place, Mrs. Pinto, says Tryan, rising. 

Take my place, and make free use of my gains. Nay,^"^ 
as she enacts a show of very feeble remonstrance, I will 
accept no denial. Cards delight me not at any time. I 
am less in the humor for them than usual to-night. You 
promised before we left Nice that I should be your banker. 
Profit by the good fortune — rare enough as you know — that 
has befallen me. 

But Nessie Pinto^s gods, if gods she have, are unpro- 
pitious. The dealing of Paul Joseph, the wearing of her 
hempen amulet, the utilizing of Roger’s winnings, avail 
her not. 

The heap of gold melts away. More gold out of Mr. 
Tryan’ s pocket melts away. He produces notes, solid 


138 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


Bank of France notes, at Mrs. Pinto^s bidding. They 
vanish. 

Joyce Dormer, a sad spectator of it all, in her young 
heart understanding but half she looks upon, feels her 
spirit sink. 

‘‘You were only too right, mother, she whispers, mov- 
ing back from the table with a shudder. “ Monte Carlo 
might yield inspiration to genius, never to me. My dream 
of outrivaling Schumann is over; I am ready to leave at 
once if~-4f — 

But here the poor girFs si3eech fails her for sudden ter- 
ror. Stretching out her hand, as she believed, toward Mrs. 
Dormer, Joyce has rested it, with trembling pressure, on 
the arm of a stranger, a tiercely-mustachioed foreigner, 
brilliant to excess, as regards his waistcoat buttons and 
sleeve-links, and who returns her glance with a coarse, 
cynically familiar smile that turns her blood cold. 

A branch of Austrian royalty is spending the winter for 
quasi-bronchial reasons at Mentone. The branch and suite, 
just one minute before this juncture, entered the Monte 
Carlo gambling-rooms, and in the spasmodic contagious 
movement of the crowd — gamblers and non-gamblers alike 
eager to gaze upon a not too noteworthy Bourbon profile — 
Joyce^s mother and the poet have been swept away from 
her. 

. Far distant, and at each instant receding further, she 
sees the leonine white locks of Filippo Filij)pi, the topmost 
fluttering bow of ribbon in a Jane x\usten hat. Near at 
hand, where protection is needed most, are over-brilliant 
complexions, bistred eyes, the croupiers^ impassive faces, 
and (horribly worse than all) the stranger upon whose 
coat-sleeve her hand during the space of a few inadvertent 
seconds has rested. 

That stranger is he who calls himself “ Count Zecca, 
the fighting Fitz-Gerald of the district, a table-dfiiote noble- 
man, whose taper fingers are celebrated for their throws 
with the dice, their artistic neatness in turning 023]3ortune 
kings at ecarte. A duelist, whose shameless proficiency in 
his calling has become a by-word. A Frenchman, born in 
Mauritius, brought up in the Brazils — put upon oath, could 
Zecca give reliable evidence as to his own nationality? An 
adventurer — let us call things by their names— -an advent- 
urer, a suspected card-shar23er, a bully; and withal a man 


A BALLBOOM REPEKTAi^CE. 


139 


who, at Monte Carlo, holds his head aloft in the crowd! A 
man whose enmity few men and 'fewer women would be 
rash enough wantonly to court. 

In respect of the next five or six minutes Joyce ^s vision, 
to this hour, remains confused. She knows that Count 
Zecca, with a look and tone that stopped her heart-beats, 
turned and spoke to her. She knows that, although the 
gas-lights began to dance wildly before her sight, she gave 
Count Zecca an answer in faultlessly grammatical French, 
and with a pointed brevity which caused his sallow cheeks 
to redden. She remembers catching Nessie Pinto^s eyes 
fixed upon her, a look of cool triumph in their black 
depths; remembers hearing a stifled burst of Nessie Pinto^s 
laughter, and then — 

Then, Joyce^s clear recollections are of an English arm 
making swift approach through the crowd; of a foreign 
count, waistcoat buttons, sleeve-links, and mustachios, 
sent forcibly into nothingness; of reassuring whispers from 
a well-beloved, familiar voice; of a struggle through the 
densely packed outer vestibule; finally, of standing in the 
cool, pure night alone, on the fairest terrace in Europe, 
with Eoger Tryan ! 


CHAPTEE II. 

OUR PATHS LIE APART. 

For a while they keep rigidly to commonplace. So 
many generations of artifice live in our fibers, that at any 
crisis of strong feeling modern men and women instinctive- 
ly fall back upon the dulcet inanities, use language to hide, 
rather than set forth, their emotion. 

I recognized you. Miss Dormer,^ ^ says Tryan at length, 
just when you, unluckily, got divided from your party. 
Nothing harder, really, than for people to keep together in 
these crowded rooms. 

And the Frenchman at whose side I stood was a 
stranger — I hope you understand that,^^ cries Joyce quick- 
ly. I touched his arm with my hand, thinking mamma 
was still there, and he spoke to me. I am afraid my an- 
swer was too much seasoned with British pugnacity for 
French taste. 

A blush, painful in its intenseness, overspreads Joyce 
Dormer ^s cheek. 


140 


A BALLROOM REPENTA^TCE. 


Do not trouble yourself on the score of pugnacity. If 
explanation is needed^ Count Zecca can get it from me. 
He is a man accustomed to explanations. 

Eoger Tryan sj)eaks lightly, but with a different signifi- 
cance underlying his rej)ly to anything of which Joyce 
Dormer dreams. 

What, was the Frenchman you put aside a friend of 
yours she exclaims. Apologize to him, Mr. Tryan, 
pray, if you find that he was affronted by my brusqueness. 

Count Zecca is — no, I can not boast that I have the 
honor of the count ^s friendship! But depend upon it,^^ 
says Eoger Tryan, he will not take your rebuff too seri- 
ously! The hangers-on at Monte Carlo, men like Zecca 
and myself, are happily not overburdened with sensitive- 
ness, whatever our other failings may be.-’^ 

Hangers-on! If you knew how I hate to hear you 
class yourself among such jDeople!^^ 

The words break from Joyce^s lips ere she can reflect 
upon the perilous extent to which she may be committed 
by them. 

Are you speaking in earnest. Miss Dormer? Do you 
still take interest enough — can you still be pained, in any 
way, by such a subject 

At his tone her heart takes alarm. She remembers the 
thinness of the ice upon which both of them stand. 

^^It is late — I think, Mr. Tryan, the prudent thing 
would be to return — to search round the rooms for mam- 
ma. 

As she stammers this, she half withdraws her hand from 
Eoger Tryan^s arm, then stops short. He bethinks him of 
her attitude, her face at the moment when he asked her, 
nearly three years ago, to be his wife ! 

The prudent thing for you, or for her? Is Mrs. Dor- 
mer afraid to trust you for a short ten minutes out of her 
sight 

Mamma has never known the sensation of fear yet. 
Have you forgotten our characters so completely as to ac- 
cuse either of us of want of courage?^^ 

Then I see nothing to hinder your walking with me to 
the end of this terrace; Mrs. Dormer has an escort — 

Our dear old poet, Filippo Filippi — ^yes, my mother is 
in good hands. 

And can not possibly leave the Casino without your 


A BALLROOM REPEKTANCE. 


141 


seeing her. Surely, Miss Dormer, you need not grudge me 
my ten or twelve minutes of unexpected good fortune, he 
goes on, pleadinsrly. Do you not remember how, in our 
old London days, a hundred years ago, you used to declare 
that the dances we never reckoned on — not those lawfully 
set down in the programme — were the ones best worth 
dancing?"^ 

LTnfortunately — I mean, one may have said many 
foolish things in one^s youth — I mean, these are not our 
old London days of a hundred years ago — 

The sentiment which gives birth to these disjointed re- 
marks is worthy of a Hannah More. Quite honestly Joyce 
essays to put on looks of wisdom, tones of indifference, a 
manner of chill and absolute repulsion. And Eoger Tryan, 
.scanning her face — a page, clear, transparent as ever to 
his perusal — is not repulsed. Taking the hand that the 
girl has already half withheld from him, Eoger Tryan- 
draws it firmly within his arm, then leads her away under 
shadow of the friendly palms and eucalyptus that ‘overhang 
the terrace. 

He is a man whose best chances of life are past and done 
with, forfeited, say his friends, by a quixotism that the 
world ^s approval has scantily indorsed ! And ^N’essie Pinto, 
under the gas-lamps yonder, is making ducks and drakes 
of his money, as she, or Major Pinto, or others like unto 
them, may do with more of it to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
and to-morrow! And the woman he loves is lost. Joyce 
Dormer, bought at a price, will, he doubts not, in a couple 
more months, have pledged irrevocable faith and obedience 
before the altar to John Farintyre. 

But these present ten minutes, this actual, tangible 
snatch of good, Eoger Tryan resolves to make the most of. 
Arbitrary divisions and subdivisions of time do not exist, it 
is said, when men^s brains are at tension point. Ten min- 
utes! Why, the Parisian hashish-eater, walking one even- 
ing down the Passage of the Opera, judged, from his sen- 
sations, that the walk must have lasted two years. Who 
shall say that the ideal of a lifetime's happiness may not, 
under the influence of a more potent intoxication than 
hashish, be compressed into such a meeting as this? 

In the first place, let me have a long look at you. Miss 
Dormer. You have grown, I think, his eyes resting with 
loving scrutiny, on her fair, tall figure. But your cheeks 


142 


A BALLKOOM EEPEIsTANCE. 


are less dimpled^ have a trifle less color in them than of 
old. Are you strong 

At the remembered kindness of his look^ his tone^ Joyce 
Dormer^ s self-control all but gives away. A guilty, chok- 
ing sensation rises in her throat. 

I am much too old to grow, Mr. Tryan. You forget 
my age, of course? I shall be twenty-one next April. As 
to looking thin — my mother and I spent last autumn in 
Switzerland, and I fancy we walked ourselves into good 
condition. Dimples, as often as not, you know, arise from 
want of exercise. I am as strong as any giant. I dare say 
I shall live to be a hundred. 

And in confirmation of her giant^s strength, Joyce breaks 
down with a sigh that is half a sob. She turns her face 
wearily aside. 

‘ ^ Twenty-one in April, repeats Eoger Tryan, after a 
pause. Yes, your birthday comes on the thirtieth, just 
in time for the first roses. Do you remember — 

The birthday I was eighteen, she interrupts, and 
your gift to me! Considering that my. Stradivarius is in 
my hands every day — every hour, almost — of my life, I am 
not likely to forget it.-"^ 

How shamefully I teased you about your violin! If 
other trades failed, it was decided we should frequent fairs 
and race courses, if you remember, and when the perform- 
ance was over you were to go round, wearing spangles and 
a velvet cap, and with a little tin mug for half-pence. 

I was young in those days, Mr. Tryan. One can jest 
with such a light conscience at eighteen !^^ 

But now you play, I am told, like an artist. Coming 
across old acquaintances, I hear of you sometimes. Miss 
Dormer, when — 

When the Pinto jDolicy of isolation does not succeed in 
keeping him and the old acquaintance apart. 

Joyce Dormer^ s heart turns to ice. 

Yo doubt these same acquaintances have enlightened 
you as to other matters besides my violin-playing?^^ 

She asks the question with unreflecting eagerness, her 
face uplifted to his. 

Yes, I have been enlightened,^^ Tryan answers grave- 
ly.* ‘ ^ Once or twice I have thought of writing to Mrs. 
Dormer, of offering my good wishes and congratulations, 
but, somehow, each time my strength of mind failed me. 


A BALLEOOM EEPEisTAlsrCE. 


143 


Although we have given up corresponding, there can be no 
crime in looking upon each other as friends still, Joyce — I 
would say. Miss Dormer?’^ 

Friends 

She murmurs the word under her breath, and with an in- 
voluntary movement of the fingers that touch his arm. 

But our paths lie apart, do they not? So utterly apart, 
that for all chance of meeting, one of us might as well in- 
habit the Antipodes. Well, well, I suppose these things 
are written — no use to kick against the pricks. Some one 
who shall be nameless is a lucky fellow. 

This last remark comes out after a very full stop indeed, 
and with an obvious effort. 

J)o you think any human being should be pronounced 
lucky till he dies?^^ cries Joyce, with a futile attempt at 
speaking playfully. The pessimists, who call life a bad 
joke that does not signify, are in the right, depend upon it. 

‘‘You did not think so always. Life, to both of us, 
seemed the reverse of a bad joke once,^^ observes Roger 
Tryan. 

The meaning conveyed by his tone is unmistakable. 
Joyce knows that the hour of explanation for which she has 
so longed is at hand. Woman-like, her instinct is to escape 
from it by flight! 

“lam afraid, Mr. Tryan, delightful though the night 
is, that I must ask you to take me back. This coming to 
Monte Carlo was altogether a whim of mine,^^ she adds. 
Could Roger Tryan but know in what wild hope that whim 
had birth! “ It would be cruel to victimize my mother 
and Filippo any longer. Mamma wishes to return to Nice 
by the nine o^clock train. I really must look after her.^^ 

“ Mrs. Dormer will look after you. Do not be in any 
fear on that head. Joyce, my dear — after this abrupt 
fashion does Mr. Tryan send conventional reserve to the 
•winds — is the last rumor about your affairs reliable? Is 
Mr. Farintyre to follow you to Rome, at Easter?^ ^ 

Joyce's answer is given with loyal promptness. But 
tears are in her voice; no effort of will can hinder her 
tongue from stammering. 

‘^Rumor for once has spoken true. I am guided by my 
mother's wishes — and Mr. Farintyre 's. My mother, of 
course, knows best — there is no particular good, in long 
engagements, is there?" 


A BALLROOM REPENTAlSiCE. 


14 4 

But of this matter Roger Tiyan refuses to be a judge. 
He remembers a time when he was engaged himself, far 
bach in his youth. It was the brightest time of his life, 
and came to a close only too soon. 

If people are happy/ "" observes Joyce profoundly, but 
growing more and more confused, if people care a great 
deal for each other, I dare say it matters little whether 
they remain engaged or are married. The world is good 
to them either way. 

And when people ^ care a great deal for each other ^ 
and the world separates them — what thenr^^ 

She turns from him in mute pain. The quiet of the 
night is profound; a quiet broken at long intervals by some 
swirl of wind among the palm branches, or the dull beat of 
the waveless Mediterranean far below. 

And when people care for each other and are con- 
demned to live asunder — what then?^^ 

Roger Tryan^s voice sinks, as he repeats the question, to 
a whisper. 

Each had better lie at peace, cold and unknowing, in 
the grave, Joyce answers, with a burst of pent-up emo- 
tion. I have felt that for a very long time j^ast. Better 
find rest in one^s youth before one has forgotten the taste 
of happiness, than labor along a desert road for thirty or 
forty years I 

As the words die on her lips they reach the extremity of 
the terrace; from this a flight of broad marble steps leads 
down, through moonless glooms of tuliiD, acacia, and 
eucalyptus-trees, to a lower stretch of garden. A minute^s 
hesitation, a glance in the quarter whence Mrs. Dormer 
and Filippo may reasonably be looked for, and the lovers 
“ who ever must love more descend. A minute more, 
and they are as much alone as though a hundred leagues 
divided them from glare of gas and clink of gold, from 
rakes, rouleaux, croupiers^ cries, and the hard black eyes, 
the mocking cynical laughter, of Nessie Pinto. 

Moved by some quick instinct of shyness, Joyce Dormer 
frees herself from Tryan^s arm, and walks a i)ace or two 
away. Then she turns, and holding her hands upon her 
heart to still its beating, looks at her former sweetheart 
with steadfast gaze. 

He has aged over-early — aged more than their two years 
and a half of separation should warrant. This is all the 


A BALLEOOM REPE^sTAiTCE. 


145 


change that Joyce can discover in him. The features, the 
broW;, are delicate, the expression is honestly open as in the 
days when Eoger Tryan, the most popular speculation of 
the season, the handsomest fellow about town,'’^ first took 
her girlish heart by storm. If, according to Mrs. Dormer's 
theory, the hue of the plant becomes attuned to that of its 
surroundings; if a man, amidst coarse associates, must 
perforce be in a state of moral decadence, the process of 
degeneration makes itself visible by no outward or visible 
sign in Eoger Tryan. The poppy retains its surface white- 
ness. The man approaches our ruined cousins the Ascid- 
ians by steps as yet imperceptible. 

have given up the wearing of lavender gloves. Miss 
Dormer; my coat savors not of Bond Street; a dark suspi- 
cion of poverty and Bohemianism hangs about my 2)resence. 
You see I have the faculty, as in the days that are dead, of 
divining your thoughts.'^ 

Sweetest womanly pity, impossible for her to dissemble, 
steals into Joyce's manner. 

‘‘You are looking older than you ought to look, 
Eoger. " The familiar Christian name loill force its way, 
unnoticed by them both. “ Your temples are worn. As I 
watched you bending over the cards at that horrible gam- 
bling-table, it seemed to me that you are growing ever so 
little gray. Ah, Heaven," she adds piteously, “ what life 
is this we lead, we nineteenth-century people, that we lose 
our youth before we rightly know what youth is!" 

“ I finished with youth two years and a half ago," says 
Tryan. “ I shall be eight-and-twenty this spring. At 
eight-and-twenty a man should be wise, whether his hair 
happen to have turned gray or not. My birthday, if you 
recollect, conies close upon yours. ‘ Seven years! exactly 
the right difference between you two dear children,' Mrs. 
Dormer used to say, looking at us with fond maternal 
pride. " 

“ Mr. Tryan, is this generous? At the point where you 
and I stand now, can good come to either of us by going 
back to happier, better days?" 

“ Happier — better," he repeats, with collected slowness. 
“ If I believe you to be in earnest, not swayed by the light 
comedy of the moment, I should feel sorry that you used 
those words. For I love you! Oh, no need to turn your 
head away. Mrs. Dormer, Lady Joan Majendie herself. 


14G 


A BALLROOM REPE>^TA^s^CE. 


might hear the confession. I love you so much that I 
would rather your future life was untroubled by regrets. 
Your happiest, best days — or you ought to think so — are 
to come. It was of your own free-will, remember, that 
you gave me up in my poverty. 

Eoger—;^ 

Just as it is of your own free-will that you are taking 
— well, that you are on the road to taking Farintyre in his 
riches. As well learn or unlearn sufficiently to make the 
best of him, my poor little friend, for your own sake. 

Upon this, Joyce’s fortitude breaks down signally. She 
lifts her hands to her face; a big sob convulses her throat, 
and in another moment Eoger Tryan’s arms are around 
her. 

When I gave you up, when I was persuaded into writing 
to you as I did, I sinned.” She murmurs this with broken, 
indistinct utterance, her head clasped against his breast. 

Yet I think if you had been j)atient only a little while 
longer, things might have come straight. I was penitent. 
I was waiting day by day for a chance of reconciliation when 
mamma received that crushing letter from Lady Joan 
Majendie. She had seen you at some German watering- 
place with congenial friends, in excellent spirits. And I 
knew that you had forgotten me.” 

Absolutely, simply uj)right is Roger Tryan’s answer. 

I have not forgotten you during one waking hour of 
my life. AVherever I have traveled, whatever my associ- 
ates have been, your face, my darling, has been before me 
always. So it will continue to be, I hope — for to me there 
would be no gain in forgetting jDast hapiDiness — till tha 
end. ” 

Yet you never wrote, you never gave' me an opjDortu- 
nitv of setting myself right in your eyes?” 

I looked upon my sentence as final. I knew that my 
judges had decided with wisdom not to be questioned,” 
says Roger Tryan. 

You are cruel; but I deserve it. I deserve more than 
you can say. ” 

Joyce clas 2 :)s her hands together with a gesture half de- 
sj^air, half entreaty. As she makes this movement, the 
only adornment of her somber dress, a bunch of violets, 
tied with a loop of crimson filoselle, falls from her throat 
to the ground. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


147 


In a moment the violets are in Roger^s possession; he 
lifts them, warm and odorous from their resting-place, to 
his lips. 

‘‘ I will give them back, or some fresher ones, if you will 
accept them from me to- morrow. Miss Dormer, will you 
allow me to call upon you?^^ 

‘‘ Yes, Mr. Tryan, I will allow you.-^^ 

There are one or two questions to which I should like 
a plain, straightforward answer. In the first place: is it 
altogether too late to move for a new trial? Do not talk to 
me of your mother^ s wishes or of Mr. Farintyre^’s. Are 
yott definitely pledged as regards next Easter, or are you 
not?^" 


Low is his voice and well controlled, but the ring of pas- 
sion is there. It vibrates through every fiber of Joyce’s 
frame. And still— she vacillates! Her right of action, as 
the reader knows, is not forfeited, a loop-hole of freedom 
remains to her. If either of us see fit to change between 
this and April, was the ultimatum delivered to John 
Farintyre at Clarens, ^‘it shall not be counted as false- 
hood.-’^ And Roger Tryan, full of unchanged love, is at 
her side, pleads for her answer. Her breast swells wildly 
with hope; she has only to speak one woixl for that hope to 
become reality. And instead of speaking it she vacillates 
— as so many a woman has done when happiness, when 
life, depended upon a prompt Yes! She remembers her 
mother. Lady Joan Majendie, the world, and shrinks away. 

Do you ask me these questions in seriousness?” she 
falters with trembling, clammy lips. ‘‘You talk of mov- 
ing for a new trial. Do the judgments of old days affect 
you still? You are leading a changed life, Mr. Tryan. 
A^ou have new interests, new friends. Impossible that you 
can owe allegiance to them, yet care what fate awaits me. 

“ I owe allegiance to no one,^’ says Tryan, without a 
second’s hesitation. “ Tell me you are bound in honor, 
and I withdraw. If I had a shadow — you hear me — a 
shadow of honest hope that I could win you back, I would 
follow you to the end of the earth to-morrow. Two 3^ears 
ago,” he adds, “ you threw me over, wisely, no doubt, all 
things considered, as the world holds. Yet sometimes I 
have thought that poverty, neglect, work, sweetened by 
such love as you and I felt for each other, might have been 


148 


A BALLKOOM REPEis^TAKCE. 


Before the look of j)aiii on his white face, Joyce^s last 
frail barrier, pride, is swejDt away. 

What do I care for neglect — what do I ask but to 
work? I have been used to poverty always. I don^t want 
to know the taste of money. If I could choose, I would 
sooner spend the rest of my days free of riches than possess- 
ing them.^^ 

Joyce, is the power of choice yours still 
And Tryan has taken firm possession of her hand; her 
hand is more than half-way upon the road already traveled 
by the bunch of violets, when Mrs. Dormer, clinging to the 
arm of Filippo Filippi, appears unexpectedly on the scene. 


CHAPTEE III. 

COUKT ZECCA^S BOAST. 

The night, as I have hinted, is moonless, but the lamps, 
thickly stationed by a liberal administration along every 
alUe and terrace, rendered the Monte Carlo gardens clear 
as day. 

Watteau or Boucher might have loved to paint the scene 
upon which Mrs. Dormer, her maternal heart distraught 
(the mixed sensations of hope, dread, ruin, possible victory, 
all compressed into a moment), finds herself forced to look. 
A scene with a background of purple star-lighted sea, a 
middle distance of olive and cypress, a foregroimd of marble 
terrace, penciled fan palms, and orange-trees; item, hvo 
figures which, with eloquent grace, yield the needful touch 
of human interest to a perfect picture. 

For a moment Mrs. Dormer stands still, not so much 
irresolute as beset by conflicting resolutions. Then after 
a discreet explanatory whisper in the poet^s- ear, she trips 
forward alone, a slender hand cordially extended, an admir- 
ably well-chosen smile upon her li23s, toward Eoger Tryan. 

I have, before this, chronicled many flattering things of 
Joyce ^s mother; in common justice, two clauses horribly 
the reverse of flattering must be added. First, she never 
omits a chance of otfering her hands to an enemy. 
Secondly, when she hates you most, she is, in all seasons 
and places, mistress of a smile. 

How do you do, Mr. Tryan? Just for one moment I 
did not remember your face. Two years, alas ! work such 


A BALLROOM REPENTAI^CE. 


149 


sad havoc in us all. These charming accidental encount- 
ers make one half believe in Destiny, and still I fear, it 
must be a case of how-do-you-do and good-bye. So fortu- 
nate, Joyce, love, that you should have met with an old 
acquaintance; fortunate, too, that you and Mr. Tryan rec- 
ognized each other in that terrible crowd; now, do you 
know, we must run — yes, actually run — as fast as our dear 
Filippo can keep up with us, if we woutd catch the nine 
o^clock train. 

And, while she prattles out this little string of accentu- 
ated nothings, Mrs. Dormer holds, ay, presses the hand of 
the man whose happiness her worldly ambition has ruined. 
She looks up at Eoger Tryan with all her dimples brought 
into play, with her eyes shining softly under their long 
lashes. 

I am ready, mamma, says Joyce, in a heavy, tired 
voice. The sight of her mother ^s face, the sound of her 
mother^ s voice have borne the poor girl back from intoxica- 
tion to soberness, from the joys of a faintly possible heaven 
to the actualities of this every-day world in w^hich she and 
Mr. John Far intyre have so nearly agreed to labor along 
a desert road,^^ yokemates. As our time is short, I sup- 
pose we must say good-night, Mr. Tryan. She gives her 
hand to her old lover, lapsing, mechanically, into the frozen 
phrases of mere acquaintanceship. “We are very glad, I 
am sure, to have come across you again. 

“ So very glad!^^ echoes Mrs. Dormer, whose speech and 
manner are more italicized than usual, You are, I doubt 
not, making some stay in ^^’ice? Yes. My daughter and 
myself will, I fear, be going on to Eome immediately. I 
have been talking about the Eiviera climate and my own 
sleeplessness with Signor Filippi.’^ Had ever woman so 
many convenient symptoms loyally within call as Mrs. 
Dormer? ‘‘And he thinks — Joyce, dearest, you hear — 
Filippo Filippi thinks, with me, that there is no place like 
Eome for calming overwrought nerves. 

Eoger Tryan keeps possession of Joyce^s hand with vali- 
ant disregard of her mother^s presence. 

“ No place like Eome for enabling one to forget one^s 
self,-^^ he repeats. “ Do you recollect what Hawthorne 
makes one of his heroines say. Miss Dormer? It was in 
some book we read together in Cowes, that August! ‘ I 


150 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


believe that Eome, mere Eome, will crowd everything else 
out of my heart. ^ 

“Heaven forbid cries Joyce, unconsciously using the 
exclamation of Hilda^s betrothed. 

Mrs. Dormer is about to interpose, little approving this 
exchange of sentiment by quotation. Opportunely, how- 
ever, Filippo Filippi draws near, looking — his slouched hat 
in his hand, his cloak drawn around him — like some old 
Florentine noble, newly alighted on earth from, one of 
Titian^s canvases. Has Filippo in his poet^soul some fine 
affinity with the lovers, or does the prosaic thought of 
supper and sleep prompt him to suggest that the ladies 
must hasten if they would catch their train? Whatever his 
motive, he engages Mrs. Dormer ^s attention, drawing her 
to the nearest lamp to consult the minute-hand of his 
watch, and Tryan is free to whisper a few eager words in 
Joyce^s ear. 

“My question remains unanswered. Is the power of 
choice yours still 

“ Come to see us,^^ she falters, “ and I will tell youJ^ 

Tell him! As though the expression of her uplifted eyes 
were not doing so at this moment. 

“ At what hour co-morrow will you be at home to me:^^ 

“ I shall not leave the house all day.- We live at the 
corner of the Jardin Public — 

“ Overlooking the sea. I knew your house before you 
had been twelve hours in Nice. I have passed it, have 
looked up at a window I believed might be yours, pretty 
often during the last two or three evenings. You will see 
me in good time to-morrow; then, and— 

“ My dear Joyce, will you have the kindness to make 
haste?^^ cries Mrs. Dormer, a ripjDle of cold displeasure in 
her voice. “ If we miss this train, we shall be forced to 
return with the crowd an hour later. And of the crowd 
you and I have surely seen enough! Good-night to you, 
Mr. T ry an — ffood-night ’ ^ 

And with a lingering hand-pressure, a long, last look, 
Eoger Tryan and Joyce separate, to meet — so Mrs. Dormer 
in her heart of hearts decides — no more. 

Almost the first face Tryan encounters on re-entering 
the vestibule of the building is that of Count Zecca, the 
Monte Carlo Fitz-Gerald. 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


151 


l^ot a good face to contemplate at any time is Zecca’s. 
At this moment he is livid to the very lips; the veins upon 
his low, ignoble forehead are swollen; a glare of revengeful 
fire is in his stealthy, blood-shot eyes. 

An ungloved woman^s hand, glittering to the knuckles 
with rings, rests on Zecca^s arm. As Eoger draws near, 
the strident tones of Nessie Pinto’s voice enlighten him, 
against his will, as to the subject upon which the pair are 
conversing. 

InsuUy — oh, mong Jetu 

Major Pinto’s French, as I have said, is distinguished by 
more than common idiomatic fiuency, although his style be 
such as a man must naturally acquire among billiard- 
sharks, book-makers, and stud-grooms. !N’essie’s is of the 
’ighgate ’ill boarding-school, pure and undefiled. Like 
Chauf'-er’s prioress, she speaks French, full fair and 
fetishly — 

“ After the scole of Stratford atte Bow, 

For French of Paris is to her unknowe.” 

If Nessie have occasion to write a letter in this language, 
the poor old major, who never had a grammar lesson in 
his life, and who spells both English and French phonetic- 
ally, is forced to execute the task for her. 

hmilly — oh, mong Jeio, Mossieu h Comte, il faut 
pardonner tout a les amour eux. Ally dong ! La fille avec 
les yeux Ueux, est line ancienne amour, vous savy, Des 
cir Constances sentimentales — ’ ’ 

Sentiment ales ^ Pardi,^’ growls the Frenchman, 

dites plutot — ” 

But at this point he encounters Eoger T-ryan’s glance, 
and the sentence, happily, perhaps, for Count Zecca’s per- 
sonal and immediate well-being, remains a fragment. 

The two men have not even a bowing acquaintance. It 
has grown to be a tacitly settled thing that Tryan’s purse 
should be, as much as possible, at Major and Mrs. Pinto’s 
disposal, that their traveling-plans should be his plans, 
their stojiping-places his, their amusements his. Here 
Eoger’s weakness knows a limit. He has held himself 
coldly aloof from Major and Mrs. Pinto’s associates; has 
kept clear of Captain Blackballs and Count Punters who 
frequent Monte Carlo, just as in the old days such gentle- 
men used to frequent Homburg and Baden-Baden; a mis- 
erable, heart-sickening fraternity, among whom E’essie and 


152 A BALLKOOM KEPENTANCE. 

Nessie's husband stand on the easiest terms of good-fellow- 
ship. 

Ah, Mr. Tryan, you have come back then? Well, I 
declare, I thought you had deserted me. My last napoleon 
was dropped — Mr. Tryan nowhere! And you know how 

f articular Pinto is as to my going^about in the rooms alone, 
really had no choice but to accept the coiint^s escort. 

And Mrs. Pinto stops, still leaning on Zecca^s arm. She 
looks bacli across her shoulder, her face wreathed, poor 
creature, in the sincerest smiles she has at command, 
toward Eoger. A woman of worse heart but better breed- 
ing, finding herself in an analogous position to this of I^es- 
sie% would know how to support it with grace, would say 
the right word, look the right look, notwithstanding war- 
ranted conviction that the man upon whose arm she leaned 
and the man whose name she spoke might stand to each 
• other in the position of murderer and victim to-morrow. 
Nessie Pinto must explain, prevaricate, commit herself, 
court notoriety at each new change of her lifers sorry 
kaleidoscope. 

A dozen units, of varying nationalities, in the crowd, 
turn at her loud Mr. Tryan. A dozen pairs of eyes 
scrutinize the fiashy, overdressed Englishwoman curiously. 
They scrutinize the other factors in the group: Eoger 
Tryan, with his fine and chivalrous face, his sweet and 
lofty courtesy of bearing; Zecca, with his arrogant air, fiat 
skull, and coarsely animal cast of features; the two singu- 
larly contrasted men whom the flashy, overdressed En- 
glishwoman has brought momentarily into juxtaposition. 

Yes, indeed* You were absent so shamefully long I 
quite gave you up as my chaperon, repeats Nessie. 

What made the case more hopeless was — that I had 
watched your exit from the scene with Joyce Dormer 
Slie pronounces the name archly, with set, premeditated 
clearness. She interprets right the effect that name pro- 
duces on Eoger Tryan^s expression. 

‘ ‘ And, of course, as there was a young lady in the case, 
I looked upon your desertion of the tables and I’’ (alas for 
our Anglo-Saxon, when Nessie makes one of her desperate 
clutches after a nominative!) ‘^as final. ‘ Ou revieng 
tonjoiiTS a ses premiers amours, ^ We most of us know the 
truth of that proverb! However, Count Zecca has promised 
to give me safe conduct back to Nice.'’* 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 153 

Eoger Tryan bows; accepting liis dismissal, as he swal- 
lows his disgust, in silence. 

“ But you must not forget, she cries, her voice growing 
shriller as the distance widens between them, ^‘that you 
are engaged to us afterward. ^ The visitors at the Pension 
Potpourri request the pleasure of Mr. Tryan’ s company at 
eleven. Dancing.^ Till then, ta-taT^ 

And with a succession of friendly nods and smiles, with 
a salutation airily wafted from her jeweled fingers, Nessie 
sweeps away; her companion directing a pax’ting glance at 
Eoger Tryan, of which more than one spectator in the 
crowd guesses the sinister import. 

It is a boast of the Monte Carlo Fitz-Gerald that he has 
ofttimes sustained a scratch to honor, dispatched his chal- 
lenge, made his traveling arrangements, and got his man 
neatly finished within the twelve hours. What are the 
chances that another name shall not be added to the list of 
the neatly finished before to-morrow^s sun be high in 
heaven ! 

“ The heroic treatment has proved successful,^ ^ whispers 
Joyce, when they are about midway along their homewaird 
road to Nice. We did wisely to visit Monte Carlo, 
mother. Whatever pain one may have had to bear is past 
and done with. My heart feels lighter. 

And with change of air and scene will recover its tone 
altogether, Mrs. Dormer rejoins promptly. ‘‘We will 
start for Eome the day after to-morrow by an early train. 


CHAPTEE IV. 

FIBERS. 

“ To shorten a long story, you have made a bad night of 
it, Mrs. Pinto,^^ remarks the major moodily. “ I doiiT 
see what good is gained by beating about the bush in these 
matters. 

A solitary candle burns on madame^s untidy dressing- 
table; for Nessie, though she may stake her friend^s gold 
with a royal hand at trente-et-quarante, is a keen economist 
as regards her husband^s weekly bills in the Pension Pot- 
pourri. Monsieur, still in his big checked morning-suit, 
and with a glass of whisky and water beside him, sits with 


154 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


folded arms before the hearth. Mufti;, the lap-dog, in a 
ridiculous attitude of attention, his black locks tied from 
his forehead with shabby apple-green ribbons, rolls his eyes 
cunningly from master to mistress as though expectant of 
a scene. 

The last touch of carmine has been applied to I^essie^s 
cheeks, the last tint of bistre shaded round her eyes. She 
is appareled in a ball-dress, whose hue and freshness match 
Mufti ^s head-gear. Her bleached-gold hair descends in 
clouds to her eyebrows. Her short, thickset throat is en- 
circled by brilliants — we will not say of what water. Eed- 
olent of essence is her handkerchief, suggestive of kalydors 
and cosmetics her whole presence. The ill-lighted room, 
the untidy dressing-table, the shadowed figure of Major 
Pinto, set off, while they harmonize with, the picture. 

Yes, a deuced bad thing you and your friend Sir Dyse 
have made of it.^^ This he repeats as Nessie maintains dis- 
creet silence. And a deuced bad thing I have been 
making of it for the last fortnight or more. Unless affairs 
look up pretty speedily, Mrs. Pinto, the best course you and 
I can take will be to pack our portmanteaus, persuade 
Eoger Tryan, if we can, to do the same, and depart from 
Nice, ivitliout leaving P. P. 0. “^s upon our numerous ad- 
miring circle of acquaintance. You must understand 

Quitting her dressing-table, Nessie Pinto walks across to 
the hearth, her silken train rustling so portenfously that 
Mufti, with an air of humiliation, slinks away under his 
master^s chair. She is diligently working a pair of six-and- 
three-quhrter gloves upon a pair of seven-and-three-quarter 
hands, biding her time over obdurate thumbs and buttons, 
smoothing the wrinkles out of finger after finger, with the 
same slow patience that we have remarked as one of her 
characteristics at the gambling-table. A smile is rounds 
Mrs. Pinto^s lips, an expression of amused triumph in her 
sunken dark eyes. 

Such a queer sort of thing happened to-night, Pinto^ 
at the tables yonder. 

She indicates the supposed locality of Monte Carlo with 
a sidelong gesture of her head. 

Queer sort of things generally do go on in gambling- 
rooms,^^ says Pinto. You and I, Tis clear, do not come 
to much good there. ^ 

I rather think we were two hundred pounds to the 


A BALLROOM REPEN^TA^fCE. 


155 


good last winter — ^yes, and should have remained two hun- 
dred pounds to the good if — However, we need not hark 
hack upon that old story to-night! You know Count 
Zecca— 

DonH you know that I know him?^^ growls Pinto, 
scoundrel and blackleg that he is!^^ 

Not much worse than his friends, that I ever heard 
of. Here Nessie may be right. Of what caliber are the 
gentlemen who call Count Zecca friend? Whatever his 
sins may be,^^ she. goes on, ^^he has one virtue — courage. 
You will allow so much. He may be a gambler — 

‘‘1 dispute it!^^ In truth. Major Pinto^s mood would 
seem to be one for disputing most things. ^ ‘ When Zecca goes 
to the club it is to carry away money. We all know that. 
He makes his first appearance at an hour when other men, 
flushed with wine, heated by gas, unnerved by losses, begin 
to play wildly, and stakes his money — with discretion. His 
best friend never paid Zecca the compliment of calling him 
a gambler. 

He is not a coward — not a man whom another can in- 
sult with impunity,'’^ persists Nessie*. 

It all depends upon who the other is,^^ Pinto answers 
contemjDtuously. Zecca has eaten as much dirt as most 
men, in his day. 

He is hot disposed to eat any on the present occasion. 
Eoger Tryan, I must tell you, took it into his wise head to 
have a fracas with Count Zecca to-night, a dozen spectators 
looking on, and — 

She stops; the gay flow of her narrative cut short by the 
expression of her husband^s suddenly upraised face. 

fracas before witnesses with Zecca exclaimed 
Pinto under his breath. Eoger Tryan must have lost his 
wits — such hare-brain wits as ever he possessed. A fracas 
with Zecca means — 

A duel, or, let us hope, merely a challenge,^ inter- 
rupts his wife with calmness. ‘ ‘ Precisely. That, I fear, 
is the measure of the entanglement into which poor Eoger 
Tryan has chosen to put his foot. 

Pinto looks at his wife intently. He strokes down his 
yellow beard with the manner of one rapidly scanning- 
varied contingencies, and seeing no possibility of financial 
good to himself in any of them. 


156 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


Who is she?^^ he asks at lengthy in a compressed odd 
sort of voice. 

Major Pinto evidently holds, with Yuba Bill, that let 
a man be hell-bent or heaven-bent, somewhere in his tracks 
are a woman^s feet. 

Who is she?^^ he repeats, after a minute^s dead silence* 

E'ot — ^not Mrs. Pinto, I hope?^^ 

Not Mrs. Pinto,^^ cries Nessie, artlessly. My dear 
old goose, are you so deliciously simple as to think Mr. 
Tryan would be led into any kind of trouble about poor, 
obscure, insignificant me? Miss Joyce Dormer, mon clievy 
the blue-eyed, lackadaisical love of Eoger^s primrose days, 
was wandering about the room, and got divided — by acci- 
dent, we may charitably suppose — from her mamma. 
Well, not, of course, knowing who she was, it happened 
that Count Zecca spoke to her.^^ 

Like the double-distilled cad that he is,^^ observes 
Major Pinto, only with more emphatic felicity of language 
than I have transcribed. 

A wanderer from lifers better paths though this man be, 
he has fibers still of English manhood left in him — instincts 
pointing toward an honester lot than it has been given him 
personally to know. 

Oh, we are going to put on airs of virtue, are we?"’"' 
cries Nessie, with warmth. We are going to assert if a 
girl with a certain genre — and a genre. Miss Dormer unde- 
niably has, although I do not admire it — 

Of course you do not,^"" Pinto remarks. You have 
far too good taste, my dear, to admire Eoger Tryan^s 
former sweetheart 

And Nessie^s husband laughs aloud: a harsh, bitter 
laugh, that causes Mufti to peer forth from his hiding- 
place, and scan with renewed eagerness the faces of his 
joint possessors. 

‘ ‘ All this nonsense is beside the point. I maintain, 
cries Nessie, waxing hotter, that if any English girl, if 
any young and passably good-looking woman chooses to 
loiter about in the salles de jeu at Monte Carlo she must 
expect unfiattering notice. Joyce Dormer was standing 
beside the trente-et-quarante table, and I was witness of 
the whole scene. She turned, we may good-naturedly 
assume, believing her mother was at her side, and addressed 
Count Zecca, if my own eyesight can be trusted, laid her 


A BALLROOM REPENTAiq^CE. 


157 


hand on his arm. He answered her^ no doubt, in the kind 
of jesting tone ninety-nine men in every hundred would 
have used — Major Pinto excepted — and in a moment Koger 
Tryan, like a madman,, rushed across the room, and sent 
the Frenchman flying. 

Pinto brings his hand down upon the rickety table with 
a force that makes his tumbler ring again, and that elicits 
a short but sympathetic yelp from Mufti. The dog rolls a 
suspicious eye toward his mistress, as though to see how 
this outburst of feeling on her husband '’s part shall be re- 
ceived by her. 

Well done, Tryan! Sent the Frenchman flying, did 
he? And served the Frenchman exceedingly well right. 
^Pon my soul,^'’ says Pinto, finishing his whisky and water 
at a draught, I donT believe a man in Monte Carlo, save 
hare-brained Tryan, would have shown so much pluck. 
How, the next question is, how will the Frenchman be 
likely to take it?'’^ 

With a quiet, determined effort, Nessie -forces the six- 
and-three-quarter glove to button. 

Ah! There is a question that may concern all of us 
pretty intimately. You can keep a secret, Pinto, canT 
you,^^ she adds playfully, if I tell you one?^^ 

Major Pinto answers by a nondescript connubial growl, 
savoring little of playfulness. He disclaims any desire of 
becoming Mrs. Pin to ^s confessor. 

Only just this once! I feel, really, that you ought to 
be told,^^ says Hessie, rising to the higher plane of duty. 

After Roger Tryan had performed the act of valor you so 
much admire, he left the scene in dutiful attendance upon 
the rescued damsel. I had done play by this time, or 
rather play had done with me, so Count Zecca and I had a 
talk together. 

Which must have been improving — ^to both parties !^^ 

And Major Pinto stares gloomily before him at the fire- 
less hearth. 

‘ ^ Indeed, it so happened that- Count Zecca offered me 
his escort back to Hice. I do not care for the man,'’^ ad- 
mits Hessie with frankness; I do not care for his society. 
I knew, however, that if Mrs. Dormer and Miss Dormer 
once held out a flag of truce there was not much chance of 
my meeting Roger Tryan again. I also knew you would 
not like me to be going about alone, and so — 


158 


A BALLROOM REPEJs-TAis^CE. 


But here the major breaks in roughly. 

am a plain man^ Nessie, my dear; I like a story 
jDlainly told. Roger Tryan and that scoundrel Zecca have 
fallen foul of each other — morels the pity for Roger Tryan. 
And Mrs. Pinto — Mrs. Pinto, evidently, used her powers, 
in vain, as peace-maker. That^s about the time of day, I 
take it. DonT let us have ornamentation. DonT inter- 
ru^Dt the charming moral of your tale by idle speculations 
as to what / like, on any subject. 

Mrs. Pinto turns sharj^ly aside; the muscles around her 
lips quiver. If aught of good be in poor, world-hardened 
Nessie, surely it betrays itself at this moment. In some 
recess of her heart, jealously guarded, lingers so much love 
for Major Pinto still, that she can wince under his sar- 
casms! 

She answers him veiy low, bringing out each sentence 
with^an effort. 

^^"You like plain speaking, you say. So do I. Too late 
for Major and Mrs. Pinto to begin ornamenting their dis- 
course. Count Zecca, as I told you, brought me back to 
Mce — by the merest chance we did not travel in the same 
carriage with Roger Tryan. He spoke of the unwarranta- 
ble rudeness that had been offerer! him, of the effect such 
an affront would have on his rejoutation. 

Zecca ^s reputation! Finish with it all, quickly, I say. 
Why do you hesitate 

Well — I fear,^^ says Nessie, her face still averted from 
her husband, that Zecca is not in a mood to sleep on his 
wrongs, real or fancied. I may be mistaken, but this is 
how his talk impressed me. I did my best to conciliate 
him; still, I am afraid he means to act with French prompt- 
ness, that one of his friends will reach Roger Tryan^s hotel 
almost before Roger Tryan can reach it himself.'’^ 

Pinto starts up on the instant from his chair. 

If Tryan does the right thing, he will treat the friend 
in the same spirit as heffid the princiq)al. The days of 
dueling were over half a century ago. Tryan is known for 
his courage. ISo man would think the worse of him, or of 
any other English gentleman, for refusing to put his life in 
the power of bully. 

‘‘ ‘ A2itre pays,, atcf res rnmirs,’ says Hessie, with her 
accent. Frenchmen and Englishmen have different codes 


A BALLROOM REPEXTAiq’CE. 


159 


of honor. If Eoger Tryan never meant to stand by his ac- 
tion, I see no great bravery in committing it.^^ 

There is the fear — that he will stand by it. Poor Roger 
has a moral squint, looks at everything from an angle. We 
know how he argued himself, before old Tryaii^s death, into 
believing madness a virtue! Who shall say he will not turn 
virtuous now, put himself at Zecca's mercy, perhajDS, out 
of delicacy. Kind of high-flown bosh,^^ says Major Pinto, 
ingenuously, ‘‘ that I never can stand, at any price. How- 
ever, I shall go to him afc once. Right or wrong, sane or 
insane. I’ll see Roger through with it. "" ^ 

He has made a movement in the direction of the door 
when Kessie^s large, tightly gloved hand is laid upon his 
shoulder; is laid there with a weight of authority that Pinto 
knows and bows to. 

As a man and a brother, in the qualities commonly 
called those of the heart,'’ a superficial judge might rate 
this broken-down, outlawed major higher than his wife. In- 
tellectually, by virtue, mainly, of her cooler temperament, 
Kessie stands above him; at any hour of the twenty-four 
can, at least, take sober, not alcoholized views of motive 
and action. Ko trifling superiority, as Major Pinto, jDretty 
often, has had practical reason to acknowledge. 

Her want of passion, her iced sobriety of judgment^ 
come to the fore now. 

If you follow the best piece of advice ever given you, 
Pinto, you will keep dark for awhile. What good can 
come of making a dangerous man like Zecca our enemy? 
If Roger Tryan chose to embroil himself in a quarrel for 
the sake of his fickle first love, this pale-eyed, baby-faced 
girl, Joyce Dormer, he is a Don Quixote. That he has 
been, always. Ko occasion for Major Pinto to turn Don 
Quixote too.^^ 

Joyce Dormer is an imcommon pretty girl,^^ the ma- 
jor observes, not over appositely. Aud Mrs. Dormer is 
an uncommon pretty woman. Watched them both from 
the club windows yesterday — fellows all wanting to bet as 
to which was the mother and which the daughter, and — 
Kessie interrupts these reminiscences brusquely ; 

Has it ever occurred to you — during the time that has 
passed since first we met Eoger Tryan in Germany — has it 
ever occurred to you to reckon up the debtor and creditor 


160 


A BALLEOOM EEPEJ^-TAI^^CE. 


account between ourselves and him — I mean, roughly, of 
course 

Her hold upon Pinto’s arm tightens. She looks with 
keen meaning straight between his eyes. 

‘^You are silent, yet I thought I made my meaning 
clear. Have you ever reckoned up the debtor and creditor 
account between ourselves and Eoger Tryan?” 

Major Pinto shifts uneasily from this too close contact 
with his wife’s superior intelligence. 

You are as ’cute in everything to do with 23ewter as I 
am, Hessie. You know the figure of my debts to a shilling. 
Where’s the use of being down on a fellow, like this? Your 
play at Monte Carlo was to have brought us up, you said, 
with a run — ^^your unerring system, learned from that Eus- 
sian fellow you thought so highly of last winter.” 

Thanks to my system, I won more than two hundred 
pounds, honestly, last winter,” cries Nessie, with spirit. 

Yes, and should have kept them, carried them away in 
my pocket for the payment of butchers and bakers, if Ma- 
jor Pinto, with all his science, had not lost double the 
amount at banco. If I had only had capital to go upon 
should we be beggars, living in the Pension Potpourri, as- 
sociating with the jDeople we do, at this moment?’ ’ 

I am not imaginative, my dear; I can’t fancy Major 
and Mrs. Pinto in the possession of ca 2 )ital any more than I 
can see what all this idle talk about money has got to do 
with Tryan and Zecca. ” 

Do you know. Major Pinto,” pursues Nessie, firmly, 

that we are a good deal nearer ruin than usual — that our 
credit, even in this miserable boarding-house, is at its last 
gasp? Do you know that . Eoger Tryan could give us a 
final push in the wrong direction at any moment he 
chooses?” 

^‘By looking up an old I 0 IT or two unexpectedly ? 
Never! Eoger Tryan is not the man to be hard on his 
friends at a pinch.” 

Major Pinto’s tone, however, has significantly lessened 
in easy assurance. Such fibers of good as are in him assert 
themselves with less and less strength; Nessie follows up 
her advantage briskly. 

Eoger Tryan, unadvised, might be as careless of his 
affairs as ever. How about Eoger Tryan, married? Eoger 
Tryan, with a clever, needy mamma-in-law to look into his 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTAXCE,. 


IGl 


money interests and help him on with her advice? I look 
deeper beneath the veneer of things than you do, Pinto. I 
have an instinct of coming danger that is seldom wrong. 
Perhaps you have forgotten my dream in Newmarket the 
night before a certain Two-year-old sweejDstakes — the money 
some people might have made if they had believed in Sir 
Reginald being scratched? 

Two or three vigorous though scarcely classic expletives 
betoken that Nessie’s forewarnings are still fresh in Major 
Pinto^s mind. 

I have the same kind of dreams now, only this time 
they are waking ones. Roger Tryan has already made his 
peace, is so far lost to self -rested ^ sa^-s Nessie grandly, 
as to have accepted terms from the Dormers. We know, 
or I know, what the next act in this little genteel comedy is 
likely to be. Ask your own common sense if he could be 
those women^s friend and ours? Why, do you think if 
Roger Tryan were walking beside Joyce Dormer here, in 
Nice, that he would recognize. Major and Mrs. Pinto in the 
street ?^^ 

If he did not, it might be the luckiest thing that could 
happen for Major and Mrs. Pinto, cries the major, with 
a wretched laugh. If Roger Tryan wou^d obligingly for- 
get, not only my personal appearance, but the look of my 
name in writing, it might be about the best stroke of fort- 
une that could happen to me.^^ 

And, crossing over to the hearth. Major Pinto stations 
himself before the meager glass that surmounts the yet 
more meager mantel-shelf. He arranges the brooch in his 
gaudy French neck-cloth, arranges the set of his yellow 
English beard, then, irresolutely, edges his way toward a 
hat and great-coat that lie upon a neighboring chair. 

Do not forget that you are to figure at the Pension 
^ At Home.^ Our cavaliers are few. The young ladies 
will ex]3ectyou to put in an appearance before we reach the 
final cotillon. 

Beneath downcast lids, Mrs. Pinto glance follows her 
husbancVs movements as she makes the suggestion. 

The young ladies may dance with each other. And 
by the tone in which Major Pinto speaks, Nessie can guess 
pretty accurately at the tenor of his decisions. I^m too 
old for dancing. I’m not feeling strong. The mistral 
tries my nerves. A man must be an athlete to trot out 


162 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTAl^CE. 


three consecutive Miss Skeltons to waltz time^ and career 
through a lancers or cotillon with their terrible mother as 
a finish! Besides, if all this you have been telling me is 
correct/^ he shrinks from looking in his wife^s face; he 
moves warily toward the door — if Tryan has really been 
absurd enough to get himself into a scrape, I had best, as 
you say, keep clear of it all until things settle down, 

Nothing can be simpler. I can easily make some ex- 
cuse to Roger for your non-appearance at the dance, and — 

If I keep away it is more out of regard for Roger Tryan 
than myself. Understand that, Nessie. I am a man of 
the world. I donT want either Tryan or myself to be 
laughed at. How could I back my friend up in any mad- 
cap meeting with a cad like Zecca? Of course, if the poor 
fellow called upon me,^^ says Major Pinto in a moved 
voice, I should not refuse to act as his adviser. But it 
would go against my conscience. It would not square in 
with my notions of right to make myself a party in any 
way to such folly. 

The feeling is praiseworthy. Your sentiments do you 
the highest credit, my dear,'’^ says Nessie, accustomed to 
play dutiful prime-minister when Major Pinto^s tardy scru- 
ples assert themselves, after an imperial fashion. Unfort- 
unately, it is not permitted, in this wicked world, for all 
of us to enjoy the luxury of an elastic conscience. Major 
Pinto, for his friend^s sake, will show the better part of 
valor, and Mrs. Pinto and Mufti must face things as they 
come! Nail our colors to the mast, and stick by them, eh, 
Muftir^^ 

The dog has leaped up at the sight of Pinto ^s hat. He 
licks his master’s hand in token of farewell; he listens wist- 
fully as long as Pinto’s heavy step can be heard descending 
the pension stairs. Then, with true hang-dog mien, with 
never an attempt at a caress. Mufti slinks to his mistress’s 
side, sits obediently upright on his hind-legs while Nessie 
adjusts his silver chain, gives the last finishing touch to his 
green satin ribbons; and finally slinks down to the ball- 
room at her heels. 

In past, comparatively honorable days. Mufti, as we have 
seen, was the chief in a band of performing dogs, the prop- 
erty of a traveling Italian showman, who afterward, under 
the pressure of evil fortune, sold him to Major and Mrs. 
Pinto. Poor Mufti used to play his rubber, fire pistols, lie 


A BALLROOM KEPEKTAKCE. 


1G3 


dead^ yes, and on state occasions, fold liis arms and enact 
Kapoleon Bonaparte at Elba. Who shall say that his dog 
soul is a sheet of blanker paper than the soul of many a 
biped in broadcloth — that his sense of present humiliation 
is not sharpened by memories of a better lot! 

“ O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low — 

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils. 

Shrunk to this little measure?” 


CHAPTEK V. 

PEKSION POTPOURRI AT HOME. 

Some slight additional burning of colza oil; some dozen 
Chinese lamps, precariously suspended amidst paper roses 
across door- ways; a couple of itinerant fiddlers; white cot- 
ton gloves for the dingy fingers o: Francois and Pierre, 
and the cheap At Home of a cheap Anglo-French pen- 
sion is organized. 

Mrs. Skelton, in trailing black velvet — cotton-backed^ 
a wreath of fiowers in her cap, the fieshless cheeks high 
rouged, the warranted smile called into fullest play, re- 
ceives;'^ ^N’essie Pinto, gorgeous in the apple-green satin to 
which poor Mufti ^s neck-ribbons correspond, acting as aid- 
de-camp. 

The pension, well named Potpourri, is a dreary, barrack- 
like building, that stands a mile or more outside the Nice 
octroi. It is tenanted by such waifs and strays of the invalid 
Eiviera world as are content to accept cross-roads, scor- 
pions, brigands, doubtful mutton, and still more doubtful 
society, as a set-off to cheapness. 

The Pension Potpourri,^'' says Badeker, in small ital- 
ics, is under British superintendence.^^ Unwary trav- 
elers, to their cost, find the assertion true. For the 
Pension Potpourri is under the superintendence of Mrs. Skel- 
ton. The veteran rules the court, the camp, the grove. 
By dint of bribes to Francois and Pierre, the two overworked 
Avaiters of the house, she gets her daughters sandwiched in 
between the more eligible of the bachelors at the dinner- 
table. Her lynx-eyes inspect, if rumor Avhisper true, her 
Aviiy fingers tamper, Avith the Avhole correspondence of the 
house. Her snake-like movements, her noiseless tread, 
pink ribbons, and scarlet shawl infest eyery fioor, every 


164 


A BALLROOM REPENTAR-CE. 


staircase. She haunts the very bureau; keejDS score of 
breakages and characters alike; and scans^ not only the 
visitors'’ cards, but the weekly bills of her fellow-lodgers 
with the punctuality of a detective. 

Only when purse-strings have to be drawn does the Skel- 
ton family shrink to the rear. 

Let us, ladies, please ^ have nothing to do with finan- 
cial matters.'’^ So the veteran will plead when the Pot- 
pourri pensioners, at her own instigation, talk of giving a 
ball or getting up theatricals. ‘‘We should be sure to 
launch into foolish little extravagances did we interfere. 
Let the gentlemen, with their fine business heads, settle 
francs and centimes among themselves, and look upon us 
poor, "helpless, unmathematical creatures in the light of ci- 
phers. By which gentle strategy the gentlemen, what- 
ever the condition of their lungs or their finances, find 
themselves forced into liberality, while the poor, helpless 
unmathematical creatures are exonerated from subscrip- 
tion. 

Mrs. Skelton, with Nessie as aid-de-camp, “receives'’^ 
such motley assemblages of guests as a pension of a certain 
class within easy reach of Monte Carlo is likely to gather 
together. Husbandless wives, the specialty of the region; 
husband-seeking spinsters, of perfectly safe and certain 
age; foreign nobles, the main credential of whose nobility 
is the bit of ribbon at their button-hole; a batch of circular 
tourists; hectic poitrinaires, who, upheld by the stalwart 
arms of the Misses Skelton, may take a round and a half of 
the polka, but shake their heads at a waltz; some possible 
widowers; some shabby-genteel indigenous English; an 
asthmatic West Indian planter; a dancing chajDlain or two; 
and Sir Dyse Tottenham. Sir Lyse, persuaded by ^lessie^s 
eloquence to return early from Monte Carlo, and whose ar- 
rival causes a sensation, so . rare is a British title, even the 
title of an ancient red-tape knight, in the Pension Pot- 
pourri. 

Behold the veteran flutter, wriggle, circle around Sir 
Dyse on his entrance, like a little old bantam bound with 
in the magic of a chalk ring! Behold the pathetic impor- 
tunity with which she puts forth Miss Skelton after Miss 
Skelton for his approval! 

“ Dian, my love — Dian, you are not engaged, of course, 
for the next lancers. Sir Dyse Tottenham, will you allow 


A I3ALLK00M KEPENTAKCE. 


165 


me to introduce my second girl? I don^t know. Sir Dyse 
Tottenham, whether you admire the Greek dress? Pal- 
lid, unkempt. Miss Diana Skelton is doing her best to- 
night to resemble an antique statue. It has been thought 
in artistic circles that the chiton somewhat becomes Diana^s 
cast of features. Pansy, my dear, I have the pleasure of 
introducing you to Sir Dyse Tottenham — the eyeglass of 
that venerable Adonis having dropped discouragingly quick- 
ly, after an inspection of poor Diana^s bony charms. 

Pansy is our home-bird, an English fireside her ideal of 
earthly happiness. You are familiar, no doubt. Sir Dyse 
Tottenham, with Auchesfcer? Alas, in brighter, better 
days!^^ Mrs. Skelton dusts an imaginary weakness from a 
stuccoed cheek. The lamented prebendary — a pillar of 
the cathedral — all the best church and county society, and 
— and here is my little Aurora — old Sir Dyse, after his 
introduction to the two elder sisters, showing unmistakable 
signs of flight. Aurora, our youngest, the Benjamin of 
the brood. But for this sad traveling, and the idle ways it 
gets us into, Aurora would be in the school-room still. 

And she pursues the same strain — Sir Dyse having taken 
quick shelter under Yessie^s wing — with dancing chaplains, 
shabby-genteel residents, red-ribboned nobles, and possible 
widowers. Without haste, without rest, the frank allure- 
ments, as the Gallican expression hath it, of the three 
Misses Skelton are set forth by their vigilant mother for the 
benefit of the crowd. 

But Nessie Pinto bears away the laurels of the evening. 
ISTessie is entertaining, posted in the last turf news from 
Ei^land, the last hazardous novelty of the Porte St. Mar- 
tin, familiar with Monte Carlo gossip, broken in, I had al- 
most said as n matter of daily duty, to the amusing of list- 
eners too bored, too jaded, to search for subjects of interest 
themselves. Nessie is entertaining. Looking at her from 
a favorable point of view, forgetting that the apple-green 
satin, Mufths ribbons, and all, might be fresher, charita- 
bly ignoring the part played by art in the working-up of 
the picture, Nessie comes within the category of pretty 
women; a category from which Mrs. SkeltoiPs girls, despite 
all frantic efforts at picturesque quaintness, are forever ex- 
cluded. 

Charming, very charming, to see such exuberance of 
spirits, and yet one wishes there were more ballast; one re- 


166 


A BALLEOOM REPENTAISTCE. 


grets that poor Mrs. Pinto has never known the responsibil- 
ities of a mother. The veteran whispers this behind her 
fan, as ISTessie, with Sir Dyse for a partner, prepares to lead 
off in the l^cers. ^‘We are everything that is kind to 
her. Living under the same roof, would sisterly forbear- 
ance allow one to be otherwise? But I think it right to say 
— I should be glad, my dear madame, if you would repeat 
the fact to others — that I permit no intimacy whatever with 
my innocent children. When Mrs. Pinto joins the lawn- 
tennis playing I consider it my duty to be present. When 
Major Pinto gives one of his whist-parties — and, alas! there 
is a class amongst whom whist means whisky — we retire to 
our bedrooms. On a wet Sunday when we are all obliged 
to go to church together in the pension omnibus, I try, if 
230ssible, to give the conversation a tone. At the age of my 
girls, and with their ignorance of the world, one can not be 
too much on one^s guard. 

Nessie, meanwhile, is dancing her lancers as gayly as 
though debt, bankruptcy — ay, and darker things than 
either — did not stare Major Pinto and herself in the face. 
Eetiring, when ihe dance is over, to an improvised Eden of 
jDaper roses, pink calico, and lam 2 )-oil, outside one of the 
windows, Nessie regales Sir Dyse Tottenham's intellectual 

{ )alate with refreshment suited to the 2 )lace and hour; light, 
ittle, made dishes, for the most part, wherein the remains 
of all her very dear pension friends are served up, hot and 
highly seasoned. 

Yonder diminutive, bowing, north-country man and 
his wife — you see her? the lady clad in bridal silk, with 
muscular wrists and a forehead — are a certain newly mar- 
ried Mr. and Mrs. Peter Magrath, our musical genius and 
our bore. The bride practices her scales in the public 
salon, four hours a day. The husband gives us stale re- 
publicanism from the ‘ Aberdeen Intelligencer/'^ aud dis- 
courses about the music of the future. ‘ What is wanted 
for glide singing,^ says little Magrath, ^ is na^ voice, it is 
na^ execution, it is na^ harmony. What is wanted is just 
that which ye hear in my Gerty — sowl!^ The short-haired 
blonde, in an attitude and a sea-green turban, is a quasi- 
widow. A delicate constitution and the care of her vener- 
able mother keep her in Europe — within easy reach of 
Monte Carlo — while her husband, poor fellow, is serving 
with his ship in China. If my husband were forced to broil 


A BALLEOOM REPENTANCE. 


167 

under a tropical sun for his country's sake/^ cries Nessie, 
with one of the little sentimental bursts which, even to her- 
self, seem sincere, I would contrive to be somewhere 
nearer him than the Pension Potpourri in Nice.^^ 

Happy husband murmurs Sir Dyse, as he gazes ad- 
miringly at the rice-powder on his companion's cheek. 

But whatever we think — whatever severe things a sense 
of duty may force us to say of each other — we are of course 
very excellent friends on the outside. You can imagine, 
says Mrs. Pinto, with the easy cynicism that stamps the 
woman as surely as do her bistre and her rice-powder — 
you can imagine to what extent a dozen ladies living for 
months under the same roof must love each other. 

You are too conspicuous, all of you, for generosity to- 
ward your own sex,^"" answers Sir Dyse Tottenham, what- 
ever cruelty you may display toward ours.^^ 

Yes, we give no little Italian stabs in the dark,'’^ cries 
Yessie dramatically. We stoop to no paltry espionage. 
We are truthful and just in all our dealings. We extenuate 
when we can. We set down naught in malice. I wonder 
if Ml’S. Skelton, our veteran, has introduced the Three 
Graces, her daughters, to Sir Dyse Tottenham's notice 
A delightful elderly lady, whose name I did not catch, 
introduced me to three delightful younger ladies, answers 
the old courtier, with prudent affability. 

“To Pansy, the treasure of our hearth — our faithful, 
home- staying, stocking-knitting Pansy; to Dian, the loved 
of the Muses; to Aurora, our naughty, wild Aurora, who, 
in spite,^^ says Nessie, “ of her six-and-twenty years, well 
struck, ought to be in the nursery still. 

“ Mrs. Skelton and her daughters are evidently intimate 
friends of Mrs. Pinto^s?^'’ 

Sir Dyse Tottenham asks the question with a chuckle. 

“ I am as slightly acquainted with the Skelton family as 
jDOSsible,^^ returns Mrs. Pinto, lowering her eyelids. “ Of 
course, living about in these kinds of places it would be ab- 
surd to give one^s self airs, and indeed I rathei* 

Skelton girls, poor things! They can no more help their 
terrible mother, than they can help their own want of breed- 
ing. All I trust is, we may never come across them in 
England. You can understand, I am sure. Sir Dyse, 
among one^s own set, among Pinto ^s people in an English 


168 


A BALLKOOM REPENTANCE. 


county, it would not do, particularly as we belong to the 
Conservative interests, to renew such an acquaintance. 

Nessie is never more unintentionally diverting than in 
her moods of ambition, never more palpably out of her 
depth, and at the same time more volubly loquacious, than 
when she discourses about county exclusiveness, our set. 
Pin to ^s people, and the Conservative interests of England! 

She is still seated under the Chinese lamps in the impro- 
vised pink calico Eden, when Eoger Tryan makes his ap- 
pearance on the scene. Sir Dyse Tottenham — with his 
portly figure, his purple face, and dapper little feet, look- 
ing exceedingly like a modernized satyr, in evening dress — 
whispers in her ear. Mufti at her side does chaperon, his 
black eyes rolling deprecatingly. Separate me from my 
position, those eyes seem mutely to plead. A dog may 
be an honest dog, although muddled so deep in fortune's 
moat as to wear apple-green bows at a Pension Potpourri 
^ At Home. 

Nessie is seated thus, I say, flushed by a certain sense of 
triumph, laughing aloud over one of old Sir Dyse^s least 
conventional narratives, when Tryan, a good deal past 
midnight, enters the ball-room. 

Unnoticed himself, Eoger stands still: for the space of 
several minutes he watches the woman whom, in all honor, 
with a fine and scrupulous fidelity, he has cherished as his 
friend. A light as of noonday has this evening broken 
upon him. He knows that during the past two years he 
has been dreaming a dream, and that he has awakened, 
and as he stands here, beholds the truth, sees Uessie Pinto 
as she is— not as his imagination may blindly have persisted 
in painting her. The low sweep of forehead, the mouth 
whose handsome lines turn to hardness when she laughs, 
the thickset throat, the seven-and-three-quarter hands 
forcibly compressed into six-and-three-quarter gloves, the 
belladonna and bismuth, the lap-dog and the apple-green 
ribbons — every detail of the picture stands out before him 
with sharp distinctness, in vividest contrast to the girl 
whose pure voice rings in his ear, whose bunch of violets 
(tied with the loop of crimson silk), lies hidden, sweet and 
fragrant, in his breast. 

Well, reader, a great pang overcomes him. A sense, al- 
most of personal loss, accompanies the illumination. He 
regrets his dream only, you must understand. The dream. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


169 


the chivalrous friendship^ were his own. Nessie, until 
death them shall part, constitutes the happiness of Major 
Pinto. A dream, only — But men can not part from a 
dream, a chimera, lightly, as one throws away an old glove ! 
And this chimera, for more than two years, has been quite 
the cheerfulest thing in Koger Tryan^s life — has eaten and 
drunk, has walked and traveled- with him, has taken kindly 
interest in his troubles and his joys, embroidered initials on 
his handkerchiefs, given him opinions as to morning-suits 
and neck-ties, adjusted flowers in his button -hole, and grad- 
ually alienated him from the more solvent classes of society. 

A grasping, money-loving chimera, if very truth be told. 
But for two years Eoger has believed in it. And he regrets 
not the poor, jeweled, painted reality under the paper roses 
yonder, but his own obstinately believed-in, forever-lost 
ideal. 

‘'She that is kindest/^ The burden of the song rings 
through his thoughts. 

“ She that is kindest, when Fortune is blindest, 

She shall be first in the songs that we sing.” 

If only that kindness, that loyalty, had come from a no- 
bler heart than Nessie Pinto^s! 


CHAPTEK VI. 

SOME SCRAPS OF PAPER. 

The opening bars of a waltz, “ Du und Du,^^ which the 
itinerant fiddlers have now begun, sound to Eoger Try an 
like a death-knell. The lamps, the tinsel roses beneath 
which Nessie and Sir Dyse are sitting, the jewels on Nes- 
sie^s throat and wrists, look like the trappings of a char- 
nel. 

She sees him, and has the grace to change color beneath 
her rouge. 

“Our guests arrive so shamefully late! Positively here 
is Mr. Tryan putting in a first ajDpearance at this hour! As 
Mrs. Skelton is busy securing partners for the children, I 
suppose it is my duty to do hostess. You will excuse me. 
Sir Dyse? 

And, rising hurriedly, Nessie leaves her cavalier in soli- 


170 


A BALLROOJ^r REPENTANCE. 


tary occupation of the pink calico Eden. She advances 
with a smile^ with a glove-imprisoned hand outheld, to re- 
ceive Eoger— the victim whom to-morrow ^s sun may see 
added to Count Zecca^s ‘^neatly finished list. But the 
lights dance before her eyes; a choking sensation rises in 
her throat. Nessie Pinto is better than her own word. 
Though her colors be nailed to the mast, she is human, 
very human, at this moment. 

You do not deserve to be spoken to, Mr. Try an. 

When she is in ordinary good humor, it is her practice to 
call half the men of her acquaintance by their Christian 
names. Eemorseful, unexpected stirrings of conscience 
restrain her from using the familiar Eoger now. 

And Tryan, with suspicion already awakened, notes the 
omission. 

The young ladies would never have forgiven you had 
you thrown us over. We are so alarmingly in want of 
dancing men, especially of dancing men with a due allow- 
ance of lungs. 

Nessie's manner is sportive. She taps her fan with an 
air of jaunty self-possession upon the palm of her left hand. 
But Eoger knows her well enough to detect that the voice 
is a tone higher than its natural key, that the over-rigid 
muscles round the mouth are kept steady by force of will 
alone. 

He looks at her with an expression that Nessie, despite 
all her assumed coolness, finds it difficult to confront. 

I ought to have been here long ago, Mrs. Pinto; I re- 
turned from Monte Carlo, as you must have seen, in the 
same train with Count Zecca and yourself, hoping to reach 
the Pension Potpourri in respectable time.'^^ 

And you arrive here— in the small hours 

Yes. As I was on the point of leaving my hotel a vis- 
itor called on me. Ton can guess, can you not, on what 
errand 

I — How, in the name of Heaven, should I know any- 
thing about it? What concern can I have with Mr. Tryan^s 
mysterious midnight visitors?^^ 

And as Nessie asks this question a mirthless, ringing 
laugh escapes her lips. Is she to be unmasked openly? 
Will Eoger accuse her to the face of the half-hearted part 
which she has played? Will he let men suspect, while yet 
lawful interference may be invoked, that Zecca, her friend. 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 171 

seeks satisfaction for that unknown quantity which he is 
pleased to call his honor? 

Mrs. Pinto feels her limbs grow suddenly , weak. Thick 
heavy beads gather — white lead and rice-powder notwith- 
standing — on her forehead. 

What should you know, indeed?^^ echoes Eoger, soften- 
ing before her visible distress. As you say, what concern 
can you have with my mysterious visitors, or their errands 
Then, as she stands, paralyzed, ignorant, in her great ter- 
ror, as to how much he knows or means to reveal: Have 
you no partner for this waltz that is going on?^^ he asks 
her lightly. ‘^Is it possible that Mrs. Pinto ever stands 
out while others dance? Give it to me, then. Business 
connected with my midnight visitor will not allow me to 
stay here long,^^ Eoger adds, with a smile. I should be 
glad before we say good-night to have a last waltz together. ^ 
A last — say, rather, a first one.^^ 

' Nessie Pinto makes the remark under her breath, not 
lifting her eyes from the ground; then, resting her hand 
with an unsteadiness she is ashamed of upon Tryan^s arm, 
floats away with him among the crowd of dancers. 

She is as little given to sentiment as was ever one of 
Eve^s family; has a quite prosaic and practical soul, poor 
Xessie! a soul alive to the hour^s pain, the houEs enjoy- 
ment, persistently mindful of nothing save the cruelly fluc- 
tuating money-interests of Major and Mrs. Pinto. Yet, I 
think, through man}^ a future hour the air of Hu und 
Du,^^ that last waltz ever waltzed with Eoger Tryan, will 
be apt to haunt her memory over-pertinaciously. 

“And so, Mrs. Pinto,^'’ says Eoger, Mhen the music 
ceases, “ we stand reconciled, with ^ Hu and Hu ^ bearing 
witness to our reconciliation. You and I had something 
half like a quarrel, had we not, during our journey to 
Monte Carlo?^^ 

“ I felt wounded — I thought you had shown a disposition 
to-day to throw over old and tried friends for fickle ones,^^ 
is Nessie^s answer. 

But she falters as she makes it. She becomes suddenly 
interested in the workmanship on the handle of her fan. 

“ I must have shown a very black disposition, if that is 
true. To throw over a friend, remarks Eoger emphatic- 
ally, “ implies ingratitude — the one sin from which I have 


172 


A BALLROOM REPENTAIS'CE. 


hitherto believed myself free. Ho^yever^ we will not mis- 
understand each other in such an hour as this. I have 
never thrown you over^ Mrs. Pinto, and you were the kind- 
est, most unselfish friend in the world to me at a time long 
ago, when my need of friendship was sorest. We say good- 
bye to each other amicably, do we not 

Good-bye repeats Nessie, set adrift from all her 
moorings by his tone. Why, what queer fancy has taken 
hold of you? You talk as if Pinto and I were not going to 
see you, as usual, to-morrow morning. 

Pinto — ah, that reminds me of something I was in dan- 
ger of forgetting. Where is your husband? Roger asks 
her. Not at the club, I know. I called there to inquire 
on my way. Can you tell me, Mrs. Pinto, where I shall 
find him?^^ 

Something in his look, in his cool, concentrated voice, 
throws the miserable woman altogether ofi her guard. 

Of course I don^’t know where Pinto is,^^ she exclaims 
hysterically. How can you, after all these years, ask me 
such a question? You are very strange to-night, Mr. Try- 
an, I must say. Why should Pinto suddenly begin to tell 
me about his comings and goings? You speak as if I had 
advised him — as if he had had some weighty reason for 
avoiding you.'’^ 

As she utters this, her uncalled-for defense, her virtual 
self-accusation — utters it with stammering lips, with eyes 
guiltily downcast — every dark misgiving that Tryan, dur- 
ing the last three hours, has been forced to entertain, be- 
comes a certainty. 

He turns away; he shuns the pain of looking on her face. 

My seeing or not seeing your husband is unimportant,^^ 
he remarks quietly. ‘‘ I had a letter that I wished to give 
into Pinto^s hands— 

And that you will not trust into mine, I suppose ?^^ in- 
terrupts Nessie, with a forced laugh. 

They have by this time left the dancing-room; they stand 
together in a vestibule close beside the outer door of the 
house. The dreary consumption of Dead Sea apples that 
at such entertainments goes, in appositely, by the name of 
refreshments, is taking place just at present in the dingy 
dining-salon. And so it chances that they are alone. 
Roger Tryan takes a somewhat bulky letter from the 
breast-pocket of his coat, and reads the address aloud: 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAXCE. 


173 


Frederick Pinto, Esquire, Pension Potj)Ourri, E’ice/^ 
AVhen I wrote this,^^ he observes, I had a strong con- 
viction that Frederick Pinto himself would not be forth- 
coming. But Pinto need not have feared. Tell him so 
from me, Mrs. Pinto, when you give him his letter. He 
could have been present at your dance, could have wished 
me good-bye in safety. Your husband is the last man I 
would have seen mixed up with such a piece of folly. You 
will not forget 

I shall repeat the message as you bid me,^^ she stam- 
mers, ‘‘but really I am at a loss — 

“ Neither you nor Pinto will be at a loss to-morrow, 
says Roger Tryan. “Indeed, I think the major must 
know pretty well already how matters stand. Good-bye is a 
sorrowful word to be spoken between old acquaintances,^^ 
he adds, looking at her hand. “ But time presses — time 
that I can scarcely call my own. 

And taking her half-unwilling hand, he wrings it — so 
heartily that the stitching of the overtight gloves gives 
way. At which catastrophe Roger Tryan laughs. 

“ Will you always jDersist in buying six-and- three-quarter 
gloves, Mrs. Pinto, or will some newer friend^s wisdom 
carry more weight with it than mine has done?^^ 

‘ ‘ Some — newer friend ^s — ^ ^ 

Nessie Pinto turns ashen as she realizes his meaning. 

“ Yes. There is a sequel to everything in life, is there 
not — a third volume to the novel, a last act to the play? 
However that may be,^^ says Roger warmly, “ you can not 
prove yourself braver, cheerier, kinder, to any friend of the 
future than you were in the old Langen Waldstein da3’S to 
me. Good- night — good-bye. 

It may be granted that vanity, idleness, self-interest, 
have been the chief ingredients in Nessie Pinto^s friendship 
for Roger Tryan. But when he has gone, when she hears 
the de]Darting wheels of his fiacre crunch along the rough, 
fir-girt road that leads from the Pension Potpourri toward 
the Nice high-road, she feels that she would give her life, 
could the sacrifice cancel all that has passed this evening! 
Her heart fails her. A nameless terror makes the blood 
run chill within her veins. 

Aurora Skelton, flushed and disheveled from the dance, 
finds her friend beside the open door a good many minutes 
later, still looking forth with blank eagerness into the 


174 A BALLROOM REPEl^-TAKCE. 

darkness — still with the letter addressed to Frederick Pinto^ 
Esquire^ in her hand. 

We want you awfully, Mrs. Pinto. You must set us 
all goin^ in the cotillon/^ exclaims Aurora, her thoughts 
intent upon whatever partner of the moment she may have 
secured. “We want you and Mr. Tryan to lead, and — 
why, you don^t mean to say you are alone? Mr. Tryan has 
not forsaken us already, surely?^^ 

“ Mr. Tryan has gone to meet Major Pinto,^^ says Yessie^ 
covering up the address of the letter, and instinctively 
hazarding the statement about whose veracity she is least 
assured. “ I dare say they have some card appointment 
or other at the club. 

“ So like men — bad creatures that they are! I won^t 
sjDcak to Major Pinto for a week,^^ cries Aurora coquettish- 
ly, arranging the inflamed shoulder-knots, that, as usual, 
match her cheeks to a shade. “ With our dancing gentle- 
men so scarce too! Isiot a good waltzer among them but 
the jDOor, ashmatic West Indian. I declare, it^s just 
shameful. However, if Mr. Tryan is too grand for the 
Pension Potpourri, we must get on the best we can without 
him. ‘ Quand ong n^a pas ce qidong aww^^ says Aurora^ 
with her fine Skeltonian pronunciation of the language, 
“ ^ il fant aimer ceqxdong a.^ You agree with me, Mrs. 
Pinto? Mr. Tryan does not deserve that any one should 
wear willow on his account?^ ^ 

“ I shall be ready to show you the figures in five minutes. 
I have only to go up to my room — to read a letter, says 
Nessie, in a steady voice. “ Get ready the bouquets and 
ribbons, ascertain if the Pension Potpourri can furnish a 
decent hand-glass, and by the time the people come in from 
supper I shall be down. As you say, my dear, we must 
accustom ourselves to neglect. Mr. Tryan has run away. 
I suppose I shall have to lead the cotillon with some other 
rather worse waltzer than Mr. Tryan. 

Mrs. Pinto trips up the rickety staircase, singing — yes, 
when many things connected with to-night are talked of by 
many tongues hereafter, Aurora Skelton, to be sure, will 
have recollections on that point — singing. She gains her 
bedroom; locks the door; strikes a light. Then, sinking 
down, faint and sick, into a chair, she tears open Tryan ""s 
letter. 

On ordinary occasions, Nessie Pinto would not dare tarn- 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


175 


per with her husbaiid^s correspondence. But before the 
actnah large tragedy of this hour, even her physical fear of 
Major Pinto is forgotten. 

‘ ‘ Hotel cles Trois Empereurs, 

“ Nice, JMidniglit. 

My dear Pinto, — It is likely, as you must know, 
that I shall start on a longish'journey in a few hours^ time 
— likely, though, of course, not certain. I am strongly 
reminded just at present of a very old Joe Miller. You 
recollect the story of the fire-eating Irishman? He swore 
he had seen anchovies growing on trees in the West Indies, 
and only recollected after he had winged his man that he 
should have said ‘ capers. But the mistake did very well 
to hang a duel on. Your friend, the Monte Carlo Fitz- 
Gerald, argues, it would seem, after the same fashion. 

I return some scraps of paper which it may be satis- 
factory to you to destroy with your own hand — and remain, 
always, faithfully yours, 

^^Eoger Tryan.^^ 

This is Eoger^s letter. The scraps of paper consist of a 
dozen or more I 0 IJ^s and bills, all of difi'erent dates and 
value, and all bearing the scrawling, barely legible auto- 
graph of Major Frederick Pinto. 

As Nessie looks through them, one by one the circum- 
stances under which most of this blackmail was levied come 
back to her memory with unwelcome clearness. That 
trifling little racing matter, wiien Major Pinto was obliged 
to ask for a temporary loan at Baden; the embarrassment 
wiien their remittance was overlong in arriving from 
Pinto^s people in England; the cash that was not forthcom- 
ing for traveling expenses when she, Nessie, needed sudden 
change of air from Evian-les-Bains; and so on. Of some 
later loans, drawn this winter, in Nice, Mrs. Pinto, to do 
her justice, knows nothing. Twenty-five, fifty, a hundred, 
another hundred — as late, this one, as last Monday! She 
reckons them up roughly. She bethinks her of the sums 
she has herself playfully borrowed of Eoger, when her 
gambling purse had run short — no uncommon accident — at 
Monte Carlo; bethinks her of verbal debts dating as far 
back as Langen Waldstein, and of which Eoger, in his 
carelessness of money, has probably lost count. Then, 
rapidly putting herself through an exercise of mental 


176 


A' BALLE003I EEPENTANCE. 


arithmetic^ she computes the sum-total of their obligations 
to her friend. 

And he has finished with them; has said his last good- 
bye to the wife^ lent his final napoleon to the husband. 
Yes; reading between the lines of his short note, she dis- 
cerns that. Should Eoger Tryan escape with his life from 
Zecca^s pistol — should he never become Joyce^s husband, 
and the son-in-law of Mrs. Dormer — with Major and Mrs. 
Pinto he has finished! 

Are you coming: down to-night, or not?^^ cries out 
Aurora Skelton, as the knuckles of that vivacious young' 
lady rattle loudly at the door. The poor West Indian 
has smoked a stramonium cigarette, and is willing to lead 
off the cotillon while his breath lasts, if Mrs. Pinto will be 
his partner. 

Mrs. Pinto is not coming, answers Nessie shortly. 

You must get on with your cotillon as best you can. 
Mrs. Pinto feels tired, and will appear no more to-night. 

. Let us leave her to her vigils, reader! Let us imagine^ 
with what brevity we may, the moment when Pinto, return- 
ing from his haunts, red-eyed, empty of pocket, in the 
winter^s morning shall find Nessie — still in her brave 
attire, still with the scraps of paper between her cold 
hands — to bid him welcome! 


CHAPTEK VIL 

THE MONTE CAELO TEAGEDY. 

The four-and- twenty hours that follow upon her meeting 
with Eoger Tryan are passed in a fever of expectation by 
Joyce. 

She has said Yes,^^ with readiness more than mistrust- 
ed by Mrs. Dormer, to the scheme for leaving Yice; has 
worked cheerfully at the thousand small details of packing, 
bill-paying, and millinery necessitated by their sudden 
exodus. She has even, at her mother^ s entreaty, written a 
pleasant, gossiping little note to John Earintyre— a note 
setting forth the expedience of trying Eoman air, without 
delay, for one^s poor, overtaxed , nerves, and containing 
(for this Mrs. Dormer stipulates) a description of their last 
nighk’s visit to Monte Carlo — with only the part of Hamlet 
omitted from the play! 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAITCE. 


177 


But, though she sustains her courage stoutly, Joyce 
Dormer^s heart is on fire. She listens to every ring at the 
outer door-hell, to every fiacre that rattles down the street, 
almost to every footfall that passes along the pavement be- 
neath her window, 

Eoger Tryan must come. So she repeats to herself with 
the passionate stubborness that implies a mental doubt. 
When was Eoger ^s word other than a bond? Come he will 
and must. The clearing-up of many a by-gone trouble, ex- 
planations before the logic of whose pathos even Mrs. Dor- 
mer shall melt, will follow. A little time longer, and this 
strained travesty of life, in which for more than two years 
they have all acted a part, shall be put away — John Farin- 
tyre, even, be brought to see the wisdom of a frank, a loyal 
disloyalty. A little longer, and she shall taste hap23iness at 
the mere vision of which her, woim cheeks fiush, her e 5 ’es 
fill with the youthful hope and tenderness from which sbe 
has been too long alienated. 

But the silent hours come and go; the January twilight 
dies; the lamps are lighted. By and by Mrs. Dormer, 
curiously pale and tired after paying a round of farewell 
visits, comes home to dinner. And still there is no word of 
Eoger Tryan. 

Will he write? Will he call ere they depart to-morrow?* 
Or — but Joyce^s heart scouts the supposition ere it has time 
to form itself into words — ^has he fallen back already under 
the estranging influence of the last two years? Will that 
influence keep him from the reconciliation that it needs but 
a hand-pressure, needs but a couple of hurried sentences, 
to bring about? 

Mrs. Dormer, I say, looks pale. More than this, Mrs. 
Dormer’s magnificent digestion, for once, would seem to be 
at fault. This most philosophical of women turns away 
from the sight of food. Her hands play her false when she 
attempts to use a knife and fork. 

Joyce comments, jestingly, upon the fact. 

I think you must be leaving your heart behind you in 
Nice, mother. Do you know that you are looking as white 
as a little specter? Do you know that your hands tremble 
to such a degree that you can not carve?” 

My wrists are tired. The natural result of holding up 
a long dress,” answers Mrs. Dormer with presence of 
mind, but not encountering her daughter’s eyes. “ Can 


178 


A BALLKOOM KEPENTAis^CE. 


any fashion be more absurdly tyrannical than that of 
trailing yards of silk in the dust simjDly because a score of 
tiresome visits have to be paid!^^ 

But surely you did not make the round of all those 
houses on foot, mother?^'’ 

And as she asks this question Joyce looks a little more 
narrowly at her mother^s face. 

I dismissed my fiacre at the Bosanquets. It was 
shorter for me to run through the gardens of the Maison 
Narcisse, and so gain the side entrance of the Villa Cairn- 
gorm. Lady Cairngorm is quite in despair, Joyce, at our 
departure."’^ 

Lady Cairngorm has had hopes of me as a medium for 
her seances. ‘ With those eyes of yours, ^ she always says, 
^ those big, blue, somewhat vacant eyes of yours, my dear 
Miss Dormer, you ought to look further into the Unseen 
Universe than the rest of us.-^ 

The Unseen Universe ejaculates little Mrs. Dormer. 

A volume of adverse criticism is epitomized in her man- 
ner of accenting these words. 

And do you know, mother, I have wondered, now and 
then, if old Lady Cairngorm be right. I feel myself at 
times, especially when Stradivarius is in my hands, that I 
get deeper glimpses under the surface of things than is 
altogether canny. 

My dear Joyce! This might do very well for dear, 
credulous Lady Cairngorm. For you and me it is sadly 
idle talk.'"’ 

But Mrs. Dormer^ s face grows whiter and whiter. She 
puts down, untasted, the morsel that, when Joyce spoke, 
was on its road from her plate to her mouth. 

Why, only this evening when I was waiting for you to 
return, I took my violin and played as you like to hear me 
play, mamma, letting my fingers guide themselves. The 
saddest, strangest wail came from the strings — murmurs, I 
could not help thinking, like those that you might catch 
from the lips of a djing man.'^^ 

Pushing her plate away, Mrs. Dormer rises hastily from 
the table. 

Such notions are morbid! Such taste belongs to an 
inferior walk of art! In music, or literature, or painting, 
no person of culture ever runs after the sensational.^^ 

Unfortunately, in real life, the sensational runs after 


A BALLROO]k[ REPEKTAl^'CE. 


179 


us/^ insists Joyce. Cultivated taste may do miicli. It 
can not keep tragedy from sometimes knocking at our 
doors. 

Mrs. Dormer moves an uncertain step or so; stooping, 
she rests her lips upon her daughter's silken head. 

We are overstrung, both of us, my j^oor child. The 
last forty-eight hours have been quite too full of painful 
emotions for the good of one^s nerve-centers. We must go 
■; to rest immediately — I confess myself, for once, to be be- 

j yond food— must get up all the strength we can for to- 

I morrow ^s needs. Our train starts at five 'minutes before 

I two, and there are cards still to be left — farewells to be 

I taken before we depart.'’^ 

I When to-morrow comes, however, Mrs. Dormer^s nerve- 
I centers do not seem to have righted themselves. She ad- 

I mits that she has not slept an hour. Her cheeks are still 

4 unnaturally pale, her hand still trembles. Nice, she de- 

I dares, did she stay longer here, would kill her. Filippo 

i Filippi was right; — for the disorders of a delicately strung 

i nature must not a poet be the best of all physicians? The 

I irritating climate of the Eiviera disagrees with her fright- 

I fully. Eome, Pisa — any place sheltered from the influence 

of this Mediterranean air — must be reached, and without 
1 delay. 

; As the morning advances Mrs. Dormer^s symptoms of 
^ uneasiness increase. She has not. stamina enough left to 
face the light of day, or the eyes of her acquaintance. A 
commissioner must take round such cards as still require 
: to be left, and she will bid farewell to no one; to no one 

; save her old friend. Lady Joan Majendie, with whom she 
whispers during a mysteriously agitated five minutes, Joyce 
present, in a remote corner of the room. 

To get away from Nice; never for an instant to lose her 
daughter out of her sight — these seem to be the two imper- 
ative desires by which Mrs. Dormer is possessed. And she 
succeeds in carrying both into effect. Very few of their 
acquaintance, as it chances, are at the station on this 
Thursday afternoon, although Thursday is the day on 
which you may hear Beethoven, Spohr, and Mozart, played 
by the finest band in Europe, gratuitously. And these few 
— long afterward, Joyce grasps the significance of that fact 
— do not press forward to wish the departing travelers 
Godspeed. 


180 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


Mrs. Dormer gives a sigh of relief as the train glides 
forth into the open country. It is one of those exquisite 
days when only the name of the month can recall to 
Northern senses an idea of winter. The fair broad plain 
of vine and olive on the left is bathed in mellowest sun- 
shine; on the right an outline of distant Corsican mount- 
ains shows,, transparently clear, above the waveless purple 
of the sea. Only one other passenger is with them in the 
carriage — an Englishman, absorbed in his newspaper at the 
further end of the compartment, and evidently belonging 
to the safe tourist class, who interview Europe with the aid 
of coupons; the last human creature living, thinks Mrs. 
Dormer, recovering her spirits, from whom enlightenment 
as to Nice or Monte Carlo goings-on need be feared. 

Thank Heaven, we are off safe! I feel as though an 
incubus of dull care, a weight as of some horrible night- 
mare, had been taken suddenly from my shoulders. ^ 

The remark escapes her lips unguardedly. It is far 
more Mrs. Dormer ^s habit to use speech for the conceal- 
ment, than for the expression, of her thoughts. 

Joyce’s look is restless. She leans forth her face to catch 
a last glimpse of Nice with a wistful eagerness that it may 
be well John Farintyre is not present to witness. 

I might be ready also to thank Heaven if I knew we 
were leaving Dull Care behind us, mother. Unfortun- 
ately, he is as prompt a traveler as we are. You remem- 
ber Hans Andersen’s story of the Quarter Day Flitting? 
All the family and their belongings are there— the grand- 
father’s crutch, the baby’s cradle — and, as they start, the 
skeleton leaves his cupboard. Grim Death jumps up behind 
the coach and accompanies them on the road. Depend 
upon it, though we may not see him, our own particular 
skeleton has forsaken his cupboard, and travels with us to- 
day.” 

The color of Mrs. Dormer’s cheek does not improve at 
the suggestion. 

You are in the groove of sensation still, Joyce. The 
calming influences of ruins and galleries and soft Campagna 
air are as needful for you as for me. We shall come in for 
the best season of Roman flowers, ” Mrs. Dormer adds — 
violets, narcissus, roses, and a little later on— orange 
blossoms. ” 


A BALLROOM REPEKTA^yCE. 


181 


There is a perceptible, an intentional shade of meaning 
in the way the last word is uttered. 

You did .right to jDut violets the first on your list, 
mother,^^ is Joyce^s quiet answer. They are the fittest 
of all flowers to associate with Rome — the flowers of death. 

Amongst the thirty or forty persons who quit the train 
at Monte Carlo station is the English traveler mentally 
labeled by Mrs. Dormer'^s inner consciousness as Safe. 

It chances that, in the hurry of getting out, this traveler 
leaves his newspaper, the current number of the Kice 

Anglo-American,^^ behind him. It also chances that 
Joyce, mechanically, rather than because she feels an 
interest in the chronicling of JSTice fashionable lives, takes 
the paper in her hand, and glances carelessly down its 
columns. 

‘ ‘ ‘ The Monte Carlo Tragedy — Latest Particulars ^ — 
Why, mother, what can 'this tragedy be about? Y"ou and 
I are always the last people to hear news. ‘ Mysterious 
Disappearance of — 

So far and no further has Joyce had time to read aloud, 
when the paper is snatched from her — I should say with a 
gesture of violence, if any action of soft, dimpled Mrs. 
Dormer could be violent — is torn hastily into fragments 
and scattered through the open carriage window. 

Such publicity is quite too bad! The reports of these 
sensational proceedings should not be given in respectable 
newspapers. What have young unmarried girls — what lias 
a child like you — got to do with the suicides and horrors 
that are the scandal of the Monte Carlo gambling-tables?^^ 

Joyce looks at her mother with just that shade of suiqDrise 
that borders nearly on a suspicion. 

One has got to do with everything, mamma. Young 
w^omen can not be kept under a glass-case simply because 
they wear no wedding-ring on their third left-hand finger! 
You have aroused my curiosity,^^ she persists. What can 
there be in this Monte Carlo scandal that makes it more 
tragic than every ‘ Times ^ newspaper one reads, or more 
dangerous than every walk one takes along the London 
streets?^’ 

Mrs. Dormer^s most intimate enemies — let me use 
stronger language, her dearest friends — agree in crediting 
her with the virtue of uniform truthfulness. She is too re- 
fined of taste, too cultivated of understanding, has too 


182 A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 

acute a knowledge of social intercourse^ too keen a sympa- 
thy with common human likes and dislikes, not to hold 
trivial and purposeless fictions in contempt. 

When unlooked-for necessity arises, when embroidery has 
to be wrought on a large scale — like that of the Gobehns, 
say, or the tapestry of Bayeux — little Mrs. Dormer rises to 
the situation ; then is she an artist who falters not nor fails 
over her work. 

There are scandals and scandals, Joyce. Some things 
may not be intrinsically worse than others, but they are 
more unbefitting for a girl of your age to read about. You 
know the Polish countess we remarked so often in brown- 
and-gold at San Eenio? ^ Si jeiine, et deja Polonaise!^ 
little Doctor Vladimer used to say to her. Surely it could 
not be especially edifying for you to learn in what society, 
and carrying away what amount of rouleaux, that lady had 
decamped from Monte Carlo?^^ 

For a few seconds Joyce looks fixedly at her mother. 
She is unsuspicious of deceit: and yet, as I have said, her 
state of mind approaches that of suspicion. Unconsciously 
to herself, she is on the lookout for some grim logic of 
facts that shall account for RogePs silence. 

AVouldThe disappearance of a Polish countess be called 
a tragedy, she asks, even by the horror-seeking editor 
of a Nice newspaper?^ ^ 

It might be a tragedy to the former possessor of the 
rouleaux — though really 1 know none of the details. It is 
the kind of thing I have not patience to read through. 
Sometimes I have speculated,^'' says Mrs. Dormer after a 
pause, tohy Polish countesses can never be original! If 
one of the sisterhood would only commit a respectable, 
commonplace action it would have the zest of an epigram. 
As it is"" — Mrs. Dormer glances up with her soft eyes at 
the scarce softer heaven — one knows the Continent too 
well, has seen too much of that dull comedy called fast 
life, to be amused by the disreputable."" 

And Joyce, whatever vague misgivings trouble her con- 
science still, is silenced. 


A BALLROOM REPENTAITCE. 


183 


CHAPTER VIII. 

OIL IN' ONE^S MACARONI. 

The night is chill when they sto23 at Pisa Station, and as 
their journey is to be continued early on the following day, 
Mrs. Dormer decides to put up at the nearest hotel, an old- 
fashioned, thoroughly Italian loggia, unmentioned by Brad- 
shaw or by Murray, just within the city walls. 

Bare of carpet or matting are this loggia ^s tile-paved 
floors. The only vacant apartment is low-roofed and 
ghostly; a kind of rambling vault upon the ground-floor, 
fall of dark nooks, of possible lurking-places, and hung 
round with tapestry so gloomy in design and hue it might 
have more fitly decked an antechamber of the Inquisition 
than a modern sleeping-room. The quickly served supper 
is, however, of its kind, good; the handsome waiting- 
women are courteous; a glorious fire soon crackles and 
blazes on the hearth. And by the time twelve o^ clock 
strikes from the neighboring church of San Stefano the 
travelers are peacefully settled for the night — Mrs. Dor- 
mer^s watch and purse under her pillow; Joyce^s treasure, 
her Stradivarius, placed on a chair so as to be within reach 
of her hand. 

One. Two. Three. San Stefano has boomed forth 
that weirdest, coldest hour of the February morning, when 
Mrs. Dormer^s slumbers are broken by a cry. She starts 
up in terror, even her least excitable of brains haunted, 
perhaps, by some story of darker import than missing 
rouleaux or levanting Polish countesses; then, collecting 
her startled senses with an admirable effort of will, raises 
herself into a listening attitude, and glances round the 
room. 

All is outwardly quiet. The olive-logs no longer flame, 
but a steady glow from their red embers lights up every 
corner and recess of the tapestried walls. Mrs. Dormer^s 
purse and trinkets are safe; a primary instinct causes her 
to grope for these. Her daughter (second care of her soul) 
lies asleep, but with a face livid as death, with throat and 
neck convulsed, with eyes half unclosed, with parted, 
murmuring lips. 


184 


A BALLROOM REPENTAi^'CE. 


Stradivariiis — Mother, you should have given it me 
back. That at least, was my own. So sleeping still, the 
girl wanders on, in short, incoherent utterances. But 
you have broken my heart at last — thrown it away for your 
pleasure. Eoger! You here too? then let us make up old 
quarrels. What do you shrink from, mother? Why do 
you look so strangely at Eoger^s hand? Mrs. Pinto a false 
friend to him — ay, we knew that, long ago — a fair-weather 
friend, a creature of paint and paste, and I — oh, my deai^ 
let us go back to the old happiness — You will come to- 
morrow. You will bring me the violets you promised — not 
— ah, God, not those! They are red, they are covered with 
blood. Take them from me.'^^ 

A cry, bitterer, longer than the former one, rings 
through the room, and in another half minute Mrs. 
Dormer, hastily shawled and slippered, stands beside her 
daughter^’s pillow. 

Joyce, my love, listen to me. Wake up thoroughly 
and forget all you have been dreaming about. The maca- 
roni must have had oil in it! Impossible for the conscience 
to be at rest, with the digestion in rebellion. 

For Mrs. Dormer, a lax believer on many points, does 
yet cast sure anchor in the haven of matter-of-fact. Hold- 
ing the old-fashioned process called introspection in con- 
tempt, Mrs. Dormer belie v'es that all solution of our men- 
tal and moral troubles ought to come from the side of 
physiology. Love, fear, regret, she considers subjects for 
the microscope or dissecting- knife; and passionate grief — 
an ophthalmic affection, as some one once suggested, 
of the nerve of the fifth pair!^^ 

If we could have perfect cooking we should have per- 
fect dreams. Until that millennium comes — especially after 
supping in an Italian inn — we may do something by direct- 
ing our thoughts wisely when we lay our heads on our pil- 
low. How would my life have been ruined had I not 
looked upon the banishing of ugly nightmares as a duty. 
Pray command yourself, my dear. Endeavor to put what- 
ever nonsense you may have been dreaming about away 
from 5’ou. Twenty grains of chloral, some hours of sound 
sleep, and you will wake up a different creature. 

Mrs. Dormer, after striking a light, searches among the 
compartments of a traveling-bag for her poisons, scales. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTANCE. 185 

and weights. And Joyce comes slowly back from the land 
of specters to reality. 

Her small white face is bathed in sweat; her damp hair 
hangs in masses round her forehead. Her features have 
the pinched look of one whose feet tread the banks of the 
chill ford, who listens to voices, sees visions, that the by- 
standers, strong, healthy, broken-hearted, wot not of! 

Come to me, mother — quick. I want to get warm — I 
want to feel your hand. Leave drugs and weights and 
measures alone, she cries impatiently. What need have 
I of drugs? Hydrate of chloral — ‘ arrest of function — 
normal molecular action ^ — Yes, I remember it all; I 
know what kind of peace of mind can be bought by chloral. 
We tried the efficacy of manufactured sleep pretty often, if 
you recollect, two years ago, at the time I tried to leave off 
thinking of Eoger. 

Mrs. Dormer shivers. For a person of strong reason, 
with whom sentiment and emotion are nowhere, she really 
has become absurdly impressionable during the last eight- 
and-forty hours. 

We ought to have taken places in a sleeping-car, to 
have traveled on to Home without stopping — the jolan dear, 
wise Lady Joan recommended. These atrocious tajiestries, 
even without oil in one^s macaroni, would account for any 
number of bad dreams. 

Joyce, upon this, raises herself to a sitting position. 
Stretching forth her hands to her violin, she plays a few 
muffled pizzicato notes that in the night^s dead silence sound 
to Mrs. Dormer uncomfortably like the moaning of a hu- 
man voice. The embers of the wood fire at this moment 
fall together. They send up a last ruddy fiame upon the 
opposite wall; they light into weird distinctness one particu- 
lar scene not two yards distant from Joyce^s bed — a scene 
of which the chief foreground figure is a wounded knight, 
pierced through mail and corslet, and with his enemy, 
masked and sinister, bending over him in his death-swoon. 

He is there — I was dreaming of him when you woke 
me, mother,^ ^ exclaims the girl, pointing with her pale, 
earthy cold hand to the wall. Who shall read the mean- 
ing of my dream? Who shall say it was not fate that sent 
us to this hotel, into this room, to-night?^^ 

There is no such .entity as fate, my poor child. We 
look back from experience to accident. We talk, because 


186 


A BALLKOOM KEPENTAI^CE. 


our mothers and grandmothers did so before us, and be- 
cause we inherit certain of their fibers, about destiny. 

At first we were traveling away from Nice, you and I 
together. This was the beginning of my dream. And the 
Englishman who got out at Monaco left his ^ Anglo- 
American behind him, just as it all happened, really, on 
our journey to-day. 

Say, rather, yesterday. Mrs. Dormer glances across 
with pathos at her vacant pillow. We are already shiv- 
ering in the small hours of February the Ist.'^'^ 

I took the paper up, and you bade me read it aloud. 
The first word I saw was Eoger Tryan^s name, printed in 
blood-red letters underneath ^ The Monte Carlo Tragedy. 

Koger Tryan — the hero of our Polish countesses esca- 
jDadel^e observes Mrs. Dormer, with a laugh unsuggestive 
of amusement. 

“ That is how your voice sounded in my dream, mother. 
I tried to read, but could not Only those words: ^ The 
Monte Carlo Tragedy ;e and Eoger ’s name stood out clear 
before me. And, suddenly, you began to laugh; you 
snatched the paper from my hand, tore it across, and threw 
both pieces through the window. Now that I am awake, it 
seems absurd, but at the time it was the iDainfullest dream 
I ever had in my life. For when T looked at that which 
you had thrown away, I knew that it was my Stradivarius.''^ 

It was the oil in the macaroni, sighs little Mrs. Dor- 
mer. But, real or fancied, my sin was scarcely mortal. 
Some men have held that violins — like hearts, Joyce — are 
all the stronger for breaking and putting them together 
again. 

After that I went back with a leap — this made me 
know that I was dreaming — to the Monte Carlo gambling- 
rooms. I could smell that sickening mixture of ^as and 
patchouli and attar of roses. I could hear the voices of the 
croupiers. I saw — I see them now — the eyes and forehead, 
the bare wrists and bracelets, of Mrs. Pinto. And then, 
suddenly, I knew that you and Filippo were gone, and a 
Frenchman I stood near spoke — I donT know what words 
— and Eoger pushed forward and stood between him and 
me. 

Mr. Eoger Tryan, as usual, showed more temper than 
brains.*^ ’ For the moment Mrs. Dormer is betrayed into 
this small show of feeling. ^Mhit we will put off discussion 


A BALLROOM REPEI^TAI^'CE. 


187 


of his merits and demerits until I have the negative ad- 
vantage of feeling warm. What we want now is golden 
silence. At midday we shall be off — to scenes charmingly 
remote from overstrained and painful associations. Let us 
do our best to sleep while we can. 

I have something still to say, mother — not about my 
dream, but about that real waking in Monte Carlo. I had 
got separated from you and Filippo, as you know, just 
when the royal Austrian peoj^le were coming in. And all 
at once I found that I had mistakenly laid my hand upon a 
stranger ^s arm, a vile-looking man, covered with rings and 
chains, who turned and spofe to me in French. At the 
same moment I caught Mrs. Pinto^s eyes — I heard her 
laugh. And then, instantly, the crowd opened; I saw the 
Frenchman spin away like a ball, and I knew that Koger 
wa§ at my side. Mamma, dearest, be patient with me,'’^ 
she pleads, only for two or three minutes longer. I want 
you to answer a question truly, as you would answer a last 
question I might put to you before I died.^^ 

Day will be breaking on us, Joyce! Ask me anything 
you choose at a more fitting time and season. If only for 
one’s looks’ sake, let us try to get a little sleep.” 

You have seen so much of the world, have read so 
many books — I think, perhaps, have read so many men’s 
hearts — that you must certainly know this thing. Could 
an action like Eoger Tryan’s be construed into an insult? 
I mean — I mean — ” As Joyce’s bps falter forth the ques- 
tion, her pinched, small face turns a shade more ghastly. 

Is it the kind of thing that ever leads, among men of the 
world, to a challenge?” 

This time Mrs. Dormer gives a laugh whose frank spon- 
taneity might make the fortune of an aspirant actress. 
And still, it is not the kind of laugh one would care to have 
graven on one’s recollection. 

Challenges, except among German students and Paris- 
ian editors, are as much out of date, my child, as hair- 
powder. If a gentleman unfortunately meet with insult 
nowadays, he elevates his eyebrows, lets fall his eye- 
glass,” says Mrs. Dormer gayly, possibly writes a letter 
to the morning papers, and in any case pockets the affront. 
All these usages are ruled by fashion. One generation car- 
ries about a tindery affair called ^ honor,’ ever ready to 


188 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTAKCE. 


blaze^ in its waistcoat-pocket, just as another carries a 
snuff-box, and a third a crutch and toothpick. 

I am glad to hear you speak so lightly! I am glad to 
think you are ijositively certain. Because — oh, mother, my 
dream shifted to something too horrible! Come and hold 
me close. ‘Let me feel your arm, both arms, around me.^^ 

She nestles, like a little child seeking for shelter, in Mrs. 
Dormer’s somewhat lax clasp. 

The gas went out, suddenly; the patchouli and rose 
scents, the croupiers, the gayly dressed crowd, all vanished 
into darkness. Then I found myself, just, it seemed, as 
morning was breaking, in that field where they have the 
pigeon-shooting outside Monaco. And I saw Roger Tryan 
lying on the ground, with the same Frenchman who spoke 
to me in the gambling-rooms leaning over him.” 

You saw me, also, of course?” exclaims Mrs. Dormer 
in a forced, unnatural voice. I’m sure to be the tragic 
element in every scene with which Mr. Roger Tryan is con- 
nected.” 

Yo, mother, you were not there, nor — nor were the 
Pintos; I saw only two or three men whose faces I did not 
know, and Monsieur Gervais, the surgeon. Gervais knelt 
and supported Roger on his arm. It was as plain, all of it, 
as the tapestry hanging on the wall yonder. Yo dream of 
my whole life was ever so fearfully real as this one. Well, 
and while I was looking, Roger called me by my name, and 
I went to him. He took a bunch of violets from his breast. 
Gervais holding him still, and, as I stooped over him, I saw 
that the violets were covered with blood! I knew that Roger 
was wounded, dying. And then I heard your voice, and I 
awoke. ” 

During the narration of Joyce’s dream Mrs. Dormer has 
contrived to glide from her daughter’s embrace. .She has 
got back again to the table, and by the feeble candle-light 
has commenced to weigh out chloral hydrate from a mys- 
terious little stoppered bottle. The hand that holds the 
scales is firm. Mrs. Dormer adds to, she takes from, the 
glistening heaj) of “hell in crystals,” until the dose is 
measured to a nicety. 

“ Although you do not believe in the virtues of manu- 
factured slee23, my dear, I do. Sleep, at any price, is what 
my nerves want.” And, indeed, though Mrs. Dormer’s 
hand be untrembling, her white face seems to have aged 


A BALLROOM REPENTAi^^CE. 


189 


by a dozen years. My brain is harassed, not by super- 
natural visions, but by commonplace bodily fatigue. As to 
your dream, child, she runs on with a desperate effort at 
unconcern, if such nonsense affected one at all it ought 
to be cheerfully. All old wives ^ calculations, you know, 
should be worked backward. To dream of a personas 
death is omen of his marriage. How if there should be 
other happy events on the tapis besides a certain Koman 
wedding to which you and I are looking forward 

Joyce falls back on her pillow with a gesture of impa- 
tience, then, turning her eyes steadfastly toward the win- 
dow, she resolves to watch for daylight, to dream no more. 

Alas! sleep can no more be eluded than it can be wooed 
by the miserable. The poor girl dreams again and again 
of her old lover, now in England, now in Nice, now on the 
moonlit terrace of Monte Carlo. And each time her prom- 
ised bunch of violets is in Roger ^s hand; and each time, ere 
she can approach near enough to take them from him, the 
violets become red with blood. 


CHAPTER IX; 

MRS. PETER MAGRATH. 

But when did Rome, true Mother of Consolation, fail of 
yielding balm to the soul in which art is a passion? 

Especially in the present hot-and -cold state of Joyce Hor- 
nier^ s feelings — her heart in revolt at RogeEs silence, yet 
feverishly expectant of news from him by every post — Ro- 
man air, Roman associations, are as saving medicine. Mrs. 
Dormer, clever always at obtaining picturesque environ- 
ment on moderate terms, has secured to herself the portion 
of a third-floor flat in a tumble-down sixteenth-century pal- 
ace, closely bordering on the Piazza del Popolo. Erom the 
windows of this lodging can be seen the Hill of Gardens, 
the fair cypress and ilex groves, the statues, the terraces of 
the Pincian, with the distant trees of the Borghese Villa, 
and a glimpse of snowy Apennine for background. Feb- 
ruary has set in warm, blue, flower-laden. The mere an- 
imal sense of being alive is a pleasure. Chloral hydrate 
may rest for good in its stoppered bottle! No need to seek 
manufactured sleep in this enervating air, amidst the thou- 
sand spirit-healing influences of a Roman spring. 


190 A BALLKOOM KEPENTA]SrCE. 

Enervating: the word must ever hold good in speaking 
of the Eternal Cifcy^s climate; and still, every hour of the 
too brief day is occupied, has its own potent and absorbing 
interest. The forenoons are given up to churches, basili- 
cas, galleries, or to long drives in the Campagna, golden 
now with cistus, white with stately asphodel. Joyce was a 
child when last the Dormers visited Rome, and carries in 
her memory only such surface details as lend a keener edge 
to present enjoyment. In the afternoon Mrs. Dormer is 
called upon to pay visits, to shop, to attend to letters — as 
Easter approaches, it would seem that the Farintyre love-let- 
ters fall more than ever into the elder lady^s hands. And 
Joyce, by inadvertence, perhaps — if it were 230ssible for 
Mrs. Dormer to act inadvertently — is left alone. Alone in 
their delightfully shabby, scagliolo- floored Roman drawing- 
room, with the pathetic sweetness of the outside world, her 
Stradivarius, her own hopes and fears, imperiously shaping 
themselves at each new moment into melody for compan- 
ionship ! 

Should these emotion-fraught Lenten weeks be counted 
among the least happy ones of Joyce Dormer ^s life? She 
herself could scarcely answer that question. There are 
mental states which quicken the senses, morbidly, hke 
opium. The phase of feeling through which Joyce is pass- 
ing now belongs to them. Never again shall skies be so 
sapphire to her, or marble walls so wliite, or anemone pet- 
als so scarlet. Never shall spring violets smell so pungent, 
or the voices of children ring so clear, as during these weeks 
of intense moral strain in Rome. And to the true artist 
temperament this simple fact of heightened physical sus- 
ceptibility is not without a certain poignant charm. 

. It is her habit to rise betimes. While the gardens are 
still deserted she takes a walk each morning, unattended by 
chaperon or handmaiden, along a favorite dewy path of the 
Pincian — Rome at her feet, in the distance the gray undu- 
lations of Campagna, melting into purple until a silver line 
above Ostia marks the line of sea. As she passes the shadow 
of one isolated group of feather palms, Joyce tells herself 
daily, with the facile superstition of her age, that she reads 
a good omen in the shifting hieroglyphic cast by the level 
sun upon the grass! She feels that she must receive a letter 
from Tryan by the early j)ost, and returns home, morning 
after morning, a color on her cheek, a fire rather than a 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


191 


light in her blue eyes, to cruelest disappointment. Always 
is her plate on the breakfast-table empty, always is her 
mother elbow-deep in letters: business letters from London 
lawyers, love-letters from John Farintyre, scrawls from Paris 
milliners (quietly, and without much consulting of Joyce, 
the trousseau all this time progresses,) ominously long mis- 
sives from Lady Joan Majendie, brief marital notes from 
poor, dear Mr. Dormer, away still at Naples with his tea- 
pots. 

Early breakfast over Mrs. Dormer must see to her house- 
keeping; it is a characteristic of this dimpled, guileless lit- 
tle woman that she never allows herself to be cheated — no, 
not even by a Eoman cook; and Joyce has another hour of 
independence. This is the hour when Shipwreck 
makes greatest outward progress, when her power of com- 
position is at its strongest. Thrice blessed jDOwer — divine 
alchemy through whose means dull care evaporates for the 
artist heart in golden aerial clouds! Does not composition, 
if it be written down, require mechanical work; does not 
mechanical work, while it lasts, bring wholesome forgetful- 
ness? Even throughout the forenoon^s sight-seeing, al- 
though ruled paper and her violin are no longer at hand, 
the people who commit fiascoes, the shipwreck in which 
such people end, are ^present to Joyce^s mind. Her own 
poor bit of amateur nineteenth-century music takes to itself 
color and depth and richness from the ruins of the world^s 
art, the mighty creations of a thousand years ago, amidst 
which the girl-composer moves. At two comes luncheon, 
enlivened often by the presence of some artist or musical 
friend of former days. Afterward there is a saunter 
through the Borghese gardens, a visit to some neighboring 
church or convent. And then Mrs. Dormer^s engage- 
ments claim her; and Joyce is left to solitude, her instru- 
ment, and her own thoughts till dinner. 

A surface observer might well doubt the wisdom of such 
a plan — might hold that the way to burn Tryan^s image 
deeper than ever on the girFs heart would be in this very 
dreamy Eoman life that her mother has chalked out for 
her. But little Mrs. Dormer knows her work. Eoger 
Tryan'’s image, most things connected with poor Eoger 
Tryan, alfect Mrs. Dormer moderately just at present. She 
is in a condition of masterly inactivity, simply purposing to 
gain, may not one say to kill, time until Easter! On the 


192 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


Saturday in Easter week it is a tacitly accepted fact that 
Joyce shall be married. We are already well advanced in 
Lent, the wedding-dresses progressing in Paris, the settle- 
ments in London; John Farintyre is in tolerable temper, a 
certain untoward affair that might have wrought disturb- 
ance to our peace dying, let us hope, into oblivion in the 
neighborhood of Mce and Monte Carlo. Once married, 
and the dear child^s happiness will be safe — a sincere be- 
lief : men and women do not talk pretty euj)hemisms when 
they commune with their own conscience. To a wife, im- 
pressed by new and graver responsibilities, the details of 
that wild Monte Carlo escapade, should they, unhaj)pily, 
come to light, Avould cause pain, but jDain that must he 
home. What woman among us but has had, alas! to pass 
through some bitter ordeal of the heart, yet give the world 
no sign? 

And then money, vulgar money, as an anodyne, is so all- 

f )owerful, especially for a temperament half-fire, half-dew, 
ike Joyce^s! With her touch of genius, her refined, her sin- 
gular beauty — and all the solid thousands that the elder Mr. 
Farintyre is ready to settle — to what position, in London or 
abroad, may she not attain? When only this critical in- 
terval before the wedding-day is tided over! When only> 
mider Brussels veil and orange-blossoms, Joyce shall have 
been brought to swear honor, allegiance, and love to Mr. 
John Farintyre till death them shall part! 

The days, the weeks pass by propitiously. Almost does 
Mrs. Dormer feel that plaster-of-Paris cupids and barley- 
sugar temples are in sight. Then, on the very day when 
Farintyre is to arrive in Eome, occurs an incident, trivial 
in itself, yet well-nigh causing the downfall of solider fab- 
rics than barley-sugar; an incident showing the weak 
foundations uj)Oii which the. fondest, the most virtuous, hu- 
man projects stand. 

Leisurely strolling, toward sunset, her hand upon her 
daughter's arm, on the narcissus-studded sward of the 
Borghese gardens, Mrs. Dormer abruptly finds herself face 
to face with a Nice acquaintance, bodily escape hopeless, 
moral deliverance almost equally so. For the acquaintance 
is an ere while inmate of the Pension Potpourri — as a conse- 
quence must be conversant with the latest news of Major 
and Mrs. Pinto, with all the miserable history in which Ma- 
jor and Mrs. Pinto are negatively involved. The acquaint- 


A BALLllOOM REPEKTAiTCE. 


193 


aiice, morever, has the reputation of being garrulous and 
underbred; a traveling Mrs. Candor, ever posted in the 
small English gossip of every Continental town she haunts, 
and ever ready, in harshest tones, with disregard as to 
whether the recital entail pain or pleasui-e upon her hear- 
ers, to publish it abroad. 

Maaima,"’^ whispers Joyce, with the kind of instinctive 
moral shiver that goes before a blow, do you see who is 
a 2 )praching under the ilex shade? Mrs. Peter Magrath, 
one of the musical geniuses whom we met in Mce at Lady 
Joan Majendie^s charity concert. Surely you have not for- 
gotten the poor, little, bowing Belfast husband who told me 
I should play, as his Gerty sung, ^ with sowl!^ I propose 
flight. 

‘^And I —propose civility,^Ms Mrs. Dormer^s answer. 

We will behave ourselves amicably, believe as much only 
as charity permits of the latest Mce news, and pass quickly 
on. Dear Mrs. Magrath,^ ^ for by this time the lady is 
within ear-shot, welcome to Pome. Like so many people 
of artistic taste, you are drawn to the feet of the great en- 
chantress at Easter?^ ^ 

Mrs. Peter Magrath is tall, rectangular, flat of proflle, 
determined of mien. Long is Mrs. Peter^s throat and 
lean, a throat most unsuggestive of sweet or tender melody. 
She carries a walking-stick; she affects a masculine and 
swinging gait; she wears a Newmarket overcoat, a stand-u23 
collar, and a man^s hat. 

Eome, it has been said, is the city of abrupt contrasts. 
Could aught more jarring be found than this modern 
Briton, with her proflle and her Newmarket coat, in the 
Borghese gardens? Mrs. Peter Magrath walking under 
shelter of the ilex-trees and stone pines; amidst the im- 
memorial avenues of cypress; the fountains plashing into 
marble basins; gray, broken statues and columns — All 
so little changed, said Corinne, that Ovid and "Virgil 
might walk here and believe themselves still in the Augus- 
tan age.'^^ 

She advances, her eyes flxed with a curious expression on 
Joyce ^s face. 

Quite an unexpected pleasure, Mrs. Dormer. That is 
to say, every one in Nice knew you had gone on to Eome, 
but one scarcely expected to meet you in puUic 2 ylcice, 
Ah, and poor Miss Dormer! She is looking aged, is she not? 


194 


A BALLKOOM EEPENTAISTCE. 


A wrecks really^ considering the short time. A tremendous 
talk there was^ I assure you, when you went away so sud- 
denly; but for my part I thought your departure very nat- 
ural. As I said to Peter — 

trust Mr. Magrath^s health has improved/^ cries 
Joyce^s mother, by the pressure of her fingers on her daugh- 
ter's arm showing her readiness to move on. The air of 
Eome so deliciously sedative,"^^ she generalizes rapidly, in- 
valuable in some complicated cases of asthma — Mr. Ma- 
grath quite certain to derive benefit, and — 

Mr. Magrath derives benefit nowhere,^ ^ says Mr. Ma- 
gratlPs owner rather tartly. I declare ours has been the 
oddest kind of wedding-tour imaginable! When once you 
start the round of these invalid places, the chest doctors 
spin you on from one to another like a bad penny. If you 
listen to the chest doctors you would think lungs the only 
things in the world worth living for. Now there was Por- 
querolles, the first place we stopped at in the south. Por- 
querolles suited me to a T. There was a Philharmonic 
Society, entirely composed of gifted amateurs, the three 
resident families of the place. I was elected a member at 
once. We met Wednesday's and Saturdays, and rendered 
music, not as the professionals teach ^ ^ — Mrs. Peter Ma- 
grath’s tone becomes accentuated — but as we of the Por- 
querolles Philharmonic felt it ought to be' rendered — with 
soul. We may not, like Miss Dormer, have studied fugue 
or counterpoint. We looked upon our art as a thing of in- 
spiration, not of rule — ^yes, and there Avas not one among 
us, I may say, but had a spark of the Divine Afflatus! Mr. 
Magrath, of course, fell ill just when we were in full prac- 
tice for our Shrove Tuesday concert, and the doctor we 
called in from Marseilles — I told my husband, because he 
wanted to get the case ofi his hands — sent us on to Nice.^^ 

Where we may be certain Mrs. Magrath^s talent met 
with fullest appreciation. 

As she utters the compliment Mrs. Dormer turns, uneas- 
ily anxious for fiight. 

The music world of Nice is too much cut up into 
cliques for my taste. I have nothing to say for, or against, 
their Philharmonic Society. Of which Mrs. ^eter Ma- 
grath was, possibly, not a member. But /the music in 
some of the churches was fair; I volunteered my services at 
two of the choirs in addition to my four hours ^ daily prac- 


A BALLKOOM REPE15TTAKCE. 195 

tice at our pension, and I had almost promised to sing in one 
of the anthems at Easter, when the climate, of course, be- 
gan to disagree with Mr. Magrath. Equally, of course, the 
doctor passed us on here. Pray, Miss Dormer, turning 
her attention again to Joyce, ‘‘what outlook in the mus- 
ical way has one got m Kome?"’^ 

“ Everything in Pome is musical,^^ says Joyce, glancing 
across the Muro Torto toward the point where St. Peter^s 
mighty dome cleaves the sunset sky. “ In Kome you not 
only forget your own poorness as a musician, you forget 
yourself altogether/^ 

The Machiavellian accents of Mrs. Dormer chime in 
softly: 

. “ When Lent is done with there will be a burst of con- 
certs, public and private, at which talent, a pure soprano 
voice like Mrs. Magrath^'s, would be justly valued. Kome 
has a short season of English gayety, as you know, Mrs. 
Magrath, after Easter, and before people move on to 
Naples. At present we are keeping Lent in true Lenten 
fashion, not even an organ to be heard in the churches. 

“ Oh, indeed. I have no doubt it suits Miss Joyce Dor- 
mer ^s feelings to be quiet. 

Mrs. Peter Magrath gives the stab with slow emphasis, 
deliberately pausing to watch the effect it shall produce. 

Has it ever occurred to you, reader, that a smattering of 
. art or of music makes a narrow soul narrower, extending 
its scope on the side only of dull and jDitiful jealousies? 
But for her weak thread of a soprano voice, but for her in- 
satiate musical ambition, who shall say that Mrs. Magrath 
might not have been a passively amiable woman, an innocu- 
ous one, at least, like certain insects, which, although de- 
void of beauty, neither buzz nor sting! 

“ You have changed sadly. Miss Dormer, since that 
evening I met you in Nice, at Lady Joan Majendie^s, the 
evening when you improvised, you know — ha, ha! I 
always laugh when I think of an English person improvis- 
ing — on your violin. 

Joyce does not answer. The color comes and goes with 
overclear distinctness on her transparent face. She feels 
that while she lives she must remember the moment^s 
vaguely prophetic pain, the grotesque rectangular outlines 
of Mrs. Peter Magrath, the dusky arch of ilex and pines, 


196 


A BALLROOM REPE]SrTANCE. 


the smell of narcissus, the fountains plashing in the level 
yellow light. 

I should have called round to inquire, after the afflict- 
ing occurrence — I hope you don^t feel the glare of the de- 
clining sun, Mrs. Dormer? Stand a little to the left, and 
you will be more in shadow. I should have called to in- 
quire, and to offer — ahem! nly sympathy and Mr. Magrath^s 
under the most distressing circumstances, only you ran 
away from Nice so quick — 

We were obliged to run! The Riviera climate never 
suits my throat after January. 

Mrs. Dormer makes the interruption in a voice desper- 
ately at variance with her own. 

Really! Of course, that is some people^s way. In my 
family we hold it a duty to keep to our post, to live every- 
thing down. I dare say I have mentioned to you that I am 
one of the Treddles, the only family of the name in Great 
Britain, and all distinguished, one way or another, for our 
talents. 

Mrs. Dormer^s neck acknowledges the possibility by a 
two-inch bow. 

“ One of my uncles, the well-known Mr. Samuel Tred- 
dles, used to have his joke. ^ The only crime that can not 
be lived down,^ my uncle would say, ‘ is poverty. But 
then, that was in England, and Mr. Samuel Treddles was 
a man of position. 

My dear Joyce, we must walk on. At this time of 
year no one should be abroad after sunset. 

Indeed, all the Treddles were carriage people. Before 
marrying Mr. Magrath I was quite in the dining-out set of 
my mammals neighborhood. In these foreign places,* 
ladies, too, without a protector, it is different — Sight may 
have been the best policy! I can assure you, Mrs. Dormer, 
that we have never lost a chance of publicly expressing our 
sympathy with you and your daughter. So prejudicial, as 
Mrs. Pinto and every one else in the pension observed, to 
have an engaged girPs name mixed up with such a notori- 
ous character as poor Mr. Tryan.^^ 

Mrs. Dormer^s severest critics acknowledge that she is 
a woman who can not, outwardly, . be worsted. Outwardly, 
she is not worsted at this moment — no, not with solid 
earth crumbling under her feet, with every dearest hope 
vanishing in gloomy perspective, with Joyce's eyes, an 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 197 

anguish in them that she feelS;, rather than reads, fixed^ full 
upon her face. 

Mrs. Dormer is not worsted. She is an epitome of 
statuesque fine breeding holding its own against vulgar 
assumption, ill-judged sympathy; a model that might 
almost be held classic in that supreme social art called, in 
our nervous Saxon idiom, the art of giving the cold 
shoulder. 

Agreeable to have renewed one’s acquaintance,” by 
how wide a gulf do the italics divide the term from friend- 
ship, in this casual way. After Easter Mr. Dormer will 
be in Eome. It is possible one may have more time for 
visiting than at present. We hope sincerely that the in- 
valid will continue to make satisfactory progress, and — and 
^oocZ-evening to you, Mrs. Magrath. We must run home 
with all haste, Joyce, unless we would have the Borghese 
malaria overtake us. 


CHAPTEE X. 

BLUE SILK AND COBWEBS. 

Joyce walks quietly back along the Eoman streets, 
thronged and full colored in this hour of March sunset. 
She goes through her dinner, or a pantomime of dinner, as 
usual. She talks about the plans made for to-morrow’s 
sight-seeing, about John Earintyre, at this moment travel- 
ing by express train Eomeward — her cheeks all the while 
growing whiter and whiter, her eyes larger, her lips more 
rigidly unsmiling. 

By and by, the time drawing near when Earintyre’ s 
arrival may be looked for, calmly, but with a manner only 
the more vividly in earnest by reason of its calmness, the 
girl reverts to their meeting with Mrs. Magrath in the 
Borghese gardens. 

You heard, of course, what words were spoken, 
mother. I should like you, before John Earintyre comes, 
to tell me the meaning of them?” 

‘‘And I,” answers Mrs. Dormer promptly, “would 
willingly be spared the pain of recalling Mrs. Magrath or 
her conversation to my memory. I told you beforehand 
that we would believe as much only of her Nice gossip as 
charity permitted.” 


198 


A BALLKOOM KEPENTAKCE. 


Joyce moves across into the recess of a window^ which 
she opens, allowing the chill cattiva aria of the Eoman 
night to blow upon her face. 

‘‘ This is not a time, mother, to talk of charity. The 
burning question for me is truth, I am always giving you 
pain, I know. You dislike going back upon the past, and 
if it were possible I would never mention again a name and 
a subject that can only bring with them bitter discussion. ^ ^ 
To this Mrs. Dormer gives quick assent. 

Such silence would be wise. The past is dead and 
buried, and — 

But it is not possible, Joyce persists. You heard 
the hints thrown out by Mrs. Magrath. Prom the expres- 
sion of your face I believed you read between the lines more 
clearly than I did. Was it so?^^ 

I read, too clearly, that Mrs. Magrath^s intentions were 
unamiable,^'’ says Mrs. Dormer, gaining time. ‘‘ I have 
traveled much, have seen many unlovely types of our poor 
countrywomen. Mrs. Peter Magrath eclipses them all. ^ ’ 

Still, there must have been a foundation for her hints. 
She does not approve of me, artistically, perhaps. At Lady 
Joan Majendie^s concert some very weak performance of 
mine was received by our friends with good-natured 
leniency that Mrs. Magrath ’s finer critical sense would not 
allow her to indorse. But it is just when people do dislike 
you that they are moved to tell unpalatable truths. ^ Ex- 
pressions of sympathy — distressing circumstances! Preju- 
dicial to have an engaged girPs name mentioned in connec- 
tion with Mr. Tryan^s.^ The words come from Joyce ^s 
blanched lips with a gasp. Can you guess at the drift of 
all this? Do you see the smallest clew to the meaning of 
such language?'’^ 

Would it not be politic to regard Mrs. Magrath and 
her speech as below our notice?^ ^ 

^^Ko, mother; not at the point where I am standing 
now. I have got on well, you will say, during the last 
weeks. There has been so much to see, to think of — and I 
have done my utmost to forget my own pain, my own 
wretchedness, in my work. I have tried with a will to keep 
up from the time we left Nice, as I shall keep up to the 
last. But it is only my body that is better. A fever con- 
sumes my heart. And saying this she clasps her slight 
hands together piteously. Every day since we arrived in 


A BALLROOM REPEMTAMCE. 


199 


Rome — ^yes, sooner or later, the truth must out — I have 
expected a letter, a word from Roger Tryan, and none — 
none has come/^ 

Mrs. Dormer is as unencumbered by old-fashioned 
prejudices as most people. But as her daughter pleads to 
her, that inconvenient secretion of the brain, that peculiar 
arrangement of molecules, called conscience, does prick her 
sore. 

A letter from Roger Tryan she stammers. ‘‘ Why, 
you ceased to correspond with Roger Tryan years ago. 
And under present circumstances — John Farintyre^s feel- 
ings — 

Mrs. Dormer^s own feelings would seem to overcome 
her. For once, she is actually at a loss forewords. 

During the half hour I was with Mr. Tryan in the 
gardens at Monte Carlo we talked of many things, goes 
on Joyce, still in the same quiet, unnaturally intense voice. 

You have never once spoken to me of that meeting, 
mamma. 

It is a subject about which delicacy has bidden me be 
silent, child. 

But you must know that Roger and I could not meet 
without looking back upon our lost happiness. We are 
young still, mother, Roger Tryan and I! hTothing actually 
stands between us. 

Mrs. Dormer gives an inward shudder. It seems to her 
as though a spectral figure intervened between her daugh- 
ter's head and the deep, iron-blue background of night 
sky. 

An I so, after talking of the past, it happened that we 
found ourselves speculating a little about the future. 

The future of a beggared man.^^ 

‘ ^ Beggary is an elastic term, mamma. When our en- 
gagement was first broken off, Roger Tryan had some 
means left. He had a university training and — 

‘‘ Three hundred a year and a degree — to use one word 
instead of seven — starvation 

But we are talking of the present, of our meeting at 
Monte Carlo. Roger said enough to make me think he 
would give up his present associates, and essay a fresh start 
inlife.'’^ 

Fresh starts, as a rule, end in fresh downfalls, ob- 
serves Mrs. Dormer, seeking safety in a generalization. 


200 


A BALLROOM REPEOTAi^CE. 


That may or may not be true, mamma. In any case/^ 
Joyce adds, with firmness, we did look forward with 
something like hope to the years that lie before both of us. 
And I am glad to remember. Whatever happens, I shall 
not break with Roger again as a friend. On that point I 
am resolved. I shall not break with Roger Tryan again, 
whatever becomes of my life.^^ 

Mrs. Dormer'^s face is eloquent, though her lips speak 
not. 

For I made my peace with him. Roger asked if it was 
altogether too late for him to move for a new trial, and I 
promised him a hearing, if he would call on us next morn- 
ing in Nice. Well, although he never came, althougli I 
have had no word or letter from him since, I can not be- 
lieve Roger Tryan capable of falseness. Oh, mother, she 
exclaims, with a sudden change of voice and color, is it 
possible that some new misfortune has come to him? That 
horrible dream I had at Pisa seems to accol*d with the hints 
we heard to-day. Let us look in the arrival list, find out 
the Magraths^ hotel, and hurry there before John Farintyre 
arrives. Let us learn the worst — or make ourselves sure 
that there is no worst to learn. 

A look of wild terror is on Joyce^s face. Her quick, ex- 
cited movements, her broken utterance, betoken her to 
be in a mood for any enterprise of mad, convention-break- 
ing despair. And Mrs. Dormer knows that the moment 
for decisive action has come. Now is the whole future 
prosperity of her child ^s life lo be won or forfeited. Now 
must she, Mrs. Dormer, speak, or forever after hold her 
peace. 

Crossing the room, she rests her hand warningly on the 
girTs wrist. 

Have we sunk so low, Joyce, have we so little self- 
respect left, that we would expose ourselves to the world^s 
cold pity? The Magraths know what every one in Nice 
must have known, that you were seen at Monte Carlo on 
Mr. Tryan'^s arm. It was a deplorable imprudence. Vain 
to hope that idle brains will not speculate, idle tongues 
comment, when once people begin to set society at de- 
fiance 

But the questions I asked are not answered, mother. 
Allow the imprudence, which I do not, of being seen, 
openly, on Roger Tryan^s arm. Where are ^ the distress- 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTAKCE. 201 

ing circumstances Mrs. Magratli spoke as though some 
disgrace, some calamity, had befallen us when we left Mce 
in that hasty fashion. There could be nothing more 
calamitous in walking along the Monte Carlo terrace with 
Eoger Tryan than with any ordinary acquaintance.^^ 

Mrs. Dormer moves aside sharply. She turns so that 
only her face is in extremest outline, the still rounded 
cheek, the delicate ear, the tip of nose and of eyelash, can 
be seen by her daughter. 

Such a fraction of a profile as this affords no clew as to> 
whether a person busied on a gigantic embroidery has tho 
grace to blush or not! 

Eoger Tryan can never become as an ordinary ac- 
quaintance while both of you remain unmarried. The re- 
membrance of your unhappy engagement is too fresh for 
that. The world, much more the ill-natured section of it, 
will always look upon a renewal of intimacy between you 
with suspicion. I heard long ago, from Lady Joan 
Majendie, that the fact of your walking across the Monte 
Carlo salon on Mr. Tryan^s arm was severely criticised in 
Nice. I also heard — 

Go on, mamma. What did Lady Joan write? Tell 
the exact story. Do not stop to consider whether your 
words give me pain or pleasure. ^ ^ 

I also heard, proceeds Mrs. Dormer, speaking fast, 
like one who would fain get an unpleasant task finished, 
that Mr. Tryan, after bidding us good-bye, returned to 
the side of his friend, Mrs. Pinto. There was an entertain- 
ment that night, it would seem, in the pension where 
Major and Mrs.. Pinto live. At this entertainment Eoger 
Tryan appeared — we can believe was exposed to a fire of 
merciless raillery, for having renewed his acquaintance with 
ourselves. Eemembering an unedifying scene we were 
forced to witness on our way to Monte Carlo, you can not 
doubt loliat influence would be brought to bear upon him. 
You can not desire that on such a theme I should be more 
explicit 

Joyce looks faint and sick. She leans her shoulder 
against the frame- work of the window for support. 

More explicit? No, mamma, I think I have heard as 
much as is good for me. Poor little mother,''^ she adds in 
a softened voice, so Lady Joan wrote (as she wrote once 
before in Langen Waldstein); you knew the true state of 


202 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


things all along, only you were too tender, too considerate 
to tell me. And I— ah, the fool that I have been!^^ Joyce 
breaks off: remembering, passionately, her walks in the 
Pincian gardens, the happy omen on the palm-shadowed 
grass, the hopes, each successive morning, of the letter that 
came not. ^^But I am rightly punished. Was my past 
conduct to Eoger so upright that I should like to be treated 
with good faith by him now?^^ 

You should not take everything with such terrible seri- 
ousness,^^ says Mrs. Dormer uneasily. Eoger Tryan, of 
coarse, knew how matters stood' between you and John 
Earintyre.'^^ 

How did they stand, mother? Was I not, virtually, 
my own mistress? A loophole of escape had been 
left open. It was decided by John Farintyre, at Clarens, 
that if either of us saw fit to change before next April it 
should not be accounted as falsehood. 

Poor John Farintyre 

Mrs. Dormer turns pale as the ejaculation escapes her. 
You do well to pity him,^^ exclaims Joyce* We have 
drifted further and further into this loveless engagement, 
until it seems likely we shall end by marrying — who shall 
say with what prospect of happiness? But on that January 
night, at Monte Carlo, I might have got my freedom with- 
out disloyalty. I should have told Eoger Tryan so, if he 
had kept his promise — had called at our lodging — next 
morning. 

‘‘Eoger Tryan acted wisely in staying away.^^ And 
these words are brought out by Mrs. Dormer with firmness. 
“■ Men view such things in a lighter spirit than we do. As 
regards that luckless evening, I can quite imagine Eoger 
ret^urning, as a kind of duty, to Mrs. Pinto. She was 
under his escort, and — 

“ And, naturally, would require his attendance through- 
out the evening. You are right, mamma; I am sure men 
do not view such things as we do. To waltz at a party pre- 
sided over by Mrs. Pinto would be a kind of duty. Small 
wonder Mr. Tryan felt in no mood for calling on us the 
following morning. 

Joyce stops short. Her face droops forward on her 
breast, her arms hang nerveless, heavy, at her side. 

Still and peaceful is the breath of the Lone Mother on 
this fair night of southern spring. The stars look calmly 


A BALLROOM REPEHTAKOB. 


203 


down, as they have looked through centuries of bloodshed 
and of sin, upon moldering fresco, cypress-shaded convent 
garden, mosaic -crowned gateway, and yellow-tiowing Tiber. 
The campagna plains, lighted by a strip of crescent moon, 
lie wrapped in the humid sleep which is their beauty and 
their desolation. 

After a long silence, J oyce Dormer rouses herself with a 
start. 

A lovely evening, is it not, mamma, for John Farin- 
tyre^s first impressions of Eome? But chill — one almost 
feels malaria in the- wind. She turns away, shivering, 
from the window and its peaceful outlook. It must be 
nearly time for me to think of dressing. 

In accordance with their simple, unpretentious habits, 
Mrs. Dormer and her daughter are clad in classically 
draped, gray cashmere; no bows, flounces, furbelov/s, or 
other pride of milliners, and horror of artists, marring the 
gracefully severe effect of their attire. 

To think of dressing! You are absolutely neat and 
fresh, child. How could you be more fitly dressed than at 
presen t.^^^ 

‘^lam afraid Mr. Farintyre is not educated up to the 
point of appreciating fitness, Joyce remarks. Mr. Far- 
intyre likes to see me in pale-blue silk, poor man, or he 
fancies so. 

Pale blue must always be the true complement of a 
wild-rose complexion. The preference is artistically cor- 
rect."" 

But scarcely original. At some foolish aesthetic Lon- 
don party, last season, I wore a blue gown, and Mr. Farin- 
tyre overheard a speech one degree more foolish than the 
party, about a goddess and a cloud. He has felt himself 
safe ever since, under the precedent of another man"s 
taste. "" 

And you mean to wear a blue gown to-night?"" 

I mean to do more. Mr. Farintyre has an ideal — we 
hear of her pretty often 1 Eecollect Eosie Lascelles before 
the footlights of the Ambiguity. Mr. Farintyre likes to see 
me heavily loaded with metals. I will put on the one blue 
silk dress I possess, and the least hideous of the sets he has 
sent to me, or rather to you, of late, as an adornment. "" 

Mrs. Dormer is ill-satisfied with the girl"s tone, with her 
restless movements, with the feverish glitter of her eye. 


204 


A BALLHOOM REPENTAKCE. 


Look in the mirror^ Joyce. Use your own taste, and 
say if a rustling blue silk, if Bond Street jewelry, will ac- 
cord as well with our tattered tapestries, our cobwebs, our 
scagliolo, as the dress you wear?^^ 

It is high time to leave olf thinking of my own taste,^^ 
is Jo3^ce^s answer. My own taste, up to the present hour, 
has brought everything and everybody connected with me 
to sorrow. Far better — surely you must agree with me 
there, mamma — that I began to think of Mr. Farintyre^s.^’ 

And when, in due course of time, John Farintyre arrives, 
looking very British, and new, and out of place in the 
dusky, sixteenth century palazzo, a vision in azure silk, 
with filigree gold ornaments on throat and wrist, advances 
to the top of the staircase to meet him. 

Welcome to Eome,^^ murmurs the girl as her cheek, 
wet with recent tears, rests for one instant upon her lover^s 
waistcoat. Mamma and I are glad to see you, Mr. Far- 
intyre. 

Then she lifts her face up, smiling bravely. And Farin- 
tyre, whose instincts are tolerably reliable, knows that Joyce 
Dormer never loved him less than at this moment. 


CHAPTEE XL 

A FACE IK THE CROWD. 

Next day the English-speaking colony in Eome is 
awakened into quite a new little sensation. Joyce Dormer 
— the blue-eyed, violin-pla5dng Miss Dormer, about whose 
love affairs, my dear madame, so many and such conflict- 
ing histories have circulated — appears openly in the public 
places of the city, at John Farintyre^s side. 

They walk, during the forenoon, in the Borghese gar- 
dens; they drive on the Pincian Hill at the afternoon hour 
when all the world is there to see; in the evening attend 
one of the Lenten services in the Sistine chapel, unchaper- 
oned, throughout, by Mrs. Dormer, and with a manner, on 
Joyce ^s side at least, as calmly prosaic as though they were 
Darby and Joan of half a dozen years^ standing. 

Broken-hearted, designing, victim, or vanquisher — and 
each version of her history has had its day — one fact is cer- 
tain now; the girFs sentimental wild oats are sown! Vague- 


A BALLROOM REPENTAKCE. 


205 


ly^ it had already been whisj)ered that the great firm of 
Sloper and Scammell were engaged upon settlement-draw- 
ing in Lincoln's Inn; that ivory satins, Mechlin fiounces, 
were on their road south, from Paris; orange-flower wreatli 
and bride-maid^ s trimmings bespoken at Igenio^s of the Via 
Babuina, here, in Rome. These things were whispers, 
only; in the present overcharged state of the domestic at- 
mosphere Mrs. Dormer herself not having dared to talk of 
the marriage as inevitable. John Farintyre^s solid, flesh- 
and-blood advent, his constant public appearance at Joyce 
DormeFs side, are acts. The situation becomes crucial. 
The English-Roman colony, rousing up after its Lenten 
quiet;, knows a new little sensation! 

Is the heroine of the hour sore in her inmost heart, 
haunted by some ghost of that exceedingly ugly Monte 
Carlo tragedy? Anglo-Roman society shakes its wise head 
at the bare suggestion! At the present age of the world, 
young women on the eve of making wealthy marriages are 
haunted by nothing. 

Look at Joyce Dormer^s face, at her frequent smiles (she 
who, when she was happy, smiled so rarely), at the carna- 
tion on her cheek. The poor girl, of course, is Mrs. Dor- 
meFs child. It may be a prejudice — but who does not feel 
that that very singular china-blue eye can not be trusted! 

Easter Monday comes, with its usual ringing of bells, 
roaring of cannon, and explosions of fireworks. Before the 
day is over gracious little invitation cards go the round of 
Mrs. Dormer^s more intimate friends. Hapless Mr. Dor- 
mer, still with his tea-pots at Naples, is told, officially, that 
the pious duty of giving his daughter away in marriage will 
fall to him next Saturday. On Wednesday, a monster 
banker ^s ball is to take place at the Palazzo Orsini, and at 
this, ball Joyce, it is decided, must show herself positively 
for the last time, as Joyce Dormer, before the Roman 
world. 

And I hope, for my sake, you will not come out in a 
school-girl muslin, or dust-colored serge, says Mr. Earin- 
tyre, as he prepares to take leave of his betrothed, late on 
the Wednesday afternoon. Joyce^s somber taste is ever a 
sore point with young Croesus, who naturally looks upon 
his sweetheart — poor Croesus! — as a kind of palpitating 
block for the display of stones and stuffs. I like blue for 


206 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


a dinner dress, but to my mind there^s nothing shows a 
girl off in a ball-room better than pink satin. By George! 
you should have seen Eosie Lascelles in hers, that time 
they were playing the burlesque of ‘ Frou-Frou, ^ at the 
Ambiguity. Surely you have got a pink satin among your 
trousseau dresses 

Mrs. Dormer has been careful on the point, knowing 
John Farin tyre’s predilection. But Joyce contumaciously 
declares herself in favor of black. If there is one color 
wherein the milliners can make her look more hideous than 
another, she urges, it is pink. 

Besides, it is not correct, is it, mother — ^you know the 
unwritten law on such points — ^it is not in accordance with 
dull morality for a spinster to wear one of her matron 
gowns while she remains a spinster?’^ 

It would be in accordance with every morality to wear 
that which pleases John Farintyre,^’ says Mrs, Dormer, 
playfully evasive. ‘‘ Artistically, the choice is good. Titian 
and Eubens show us that the blondes of old, Mr. Brown- 
ing ^s dear dead women, wore pinks and crimsons without 
stint. 

Joyce bows her head in submission. 

What ornaments shall go with the artistic choice? Mr. 
Farintyre, you are fresh from London; teach us. What 
jewelry did Eosie Lascelles wear with her pink satin, when 
they burlesqued ‘ Frou-Frou ’ at the Ambiguity?” 

Farintyre passes his fat fingers through his hair, and ad- 
vocates pink coral, a magnificent set, bought yesterday by 
himself, in the Oorso. Mrs. Dormer inclines toward Eo- 
man pearls, also a gift made by Mr. John Farintyre within 
the past week. 

“ W'e will hold a council of war. Eunto your room and 
bring both cases, Joyce — that is- to say, if Smart has not al- 
ready packed them up. 

Until the present hour, it has been Mrs. Dormer’s harm- 
less vanity to boast of her state as unburdened by a lady’s 
maid. What more interesting spectacle (the real Mrs. Dor- 
mer would reason within herself about the world’s Mrs. 
Dormer) — M^hat more interesting spectacle than that of a 
brave-hearted little woman, gifted, graceful, miserably al- 
lowanced by an unappreciative husband, and having the 
courage of her opinions — and of her poverty! 

But with other times, other manners. No heterodox 


A BALLROOM REPEi^^TAKCE. 


207 


contempt for £, s, d,: no picturesque leaning toward vaga- 
bondism, under the reign of^Mr. JohnFarintyre. Croesus, 
junior, intends that his wife shall start from Rome with 
an abigail, just as he intends to start with a valet, a cour- 
ier, and a paragraph in ‘ ‘ Galignani. Do our honey- 
mooning in style,^^ wrote the young man, with delicate wit, 
in one of his more recent letters. And Joyce, passively 
obedient in all things, now that she has surrendered life it- 
self, accepts Smart, the lady^s maid, just as she does the 
bonnets, dresses, haberdashery, and traveling-gear sent out 
from London for her use. 

We will make up a blaze of fir-cones, ready for the dis- 
play, says Mrs. Dormer, approaching the smoldering 
hearth. Although the Romans call Easter summer, Far- 
intyre'^s British love of heated rooms must be ministered to 
— wood, alas I costing five lire the basket. ‘‘Mr. Farin- 
tyre, will you help? You are just beginning to master the 
difficulties of an Itahan wood fire. 

Is this sudden interest in Roman pearls and pink coral a 
pretext — the question suggests itself to Farintyre^s mind — 
for getting Joyce out of hearing? The moment the girl 
has left them, Mrs. Dormer crosses to her future son-in- 
law^s side. She rests her hand with emphasis on his. 

“ The tension is becoming too great — for you and for 
me. I shall thank Heaven when Saturday is over — when 
our poor darhng^s peace and happiness are secured. 

John Farintyre shifts, ungallantly enough, away. He 
takes a few sullen paces that echo and re-echo through the 
carpetless, barely -furnished room. 

‘‘ I don^t see why the ‘ tension need exist. In my hum- 
ble opinion the whole plan of concealment is a mistake. 

So after a minute he breaks forth — “ Tes, Mrs. Dormer, a 
deuced mistake. 

“ It has been successful hitherto, inasmuch as it has stood 
between Joyce and suffering,*^ ^ puts in Mrs. Dormer. 

“ And how long do you suppose it can be kept up? Some 
day or other is Joyce not sure to hear the truth? You say 
yourself that your life is one long dread. You tremble if 
you see her speak in the street to a common acquaintance. 
Well, I have no taste for trembling. I like things on the 
square. I would sooner have the truth told to Miss Dor- 
mer to-night, than a week hence to Mrs. Farintyre. 

“ You understand Joyce — not quite as well as I do, Mr. 


208 


A BALLROOM REPEJSTTAIjrCE. 


Farintyre! If the — the sad Monte Carlo accident which 
has caused us so much trouble had come to Joyce^s knowl- 
edge in Jfice, she might — one would grieve to say what the 
dear^ generous, unworldly child might not have done/^ 

And if the sad Monte Carlo accident should 
come to her knowledge now — I mean, any time after next 
Saturday 

‘‘ If the story of Eoger Tryan^s madness should be made 
known to her affcer your marriage, Joyce can have only one 
feeling — sorrow that a man who was our friend, once, 
should have sunk into the gambler and the duelist/^ And 
Mrs. Dormer turns her eyes, very full, very pleadingly, 
on John Farintyre. Joyce will remember whose name 
she bears, and her own dignity. As a girl she may have 
been capricious — overfull, I confess, at times, of high-flown 
quixotic sentiment. In the heart of a young wife there 
can be room only for her husband, aiid for duty.^^ 

John Farintyre looks blankly unmoved. 

Can^t say that I have had much experience of high- 
flown quixotic sentiment. The laugh that accompanies 
this remark is not a reassuring one. The young wives 
one sees about in the world contrive to find place in their 
hearts for a few things besides duty, or their husbands 
either, it seems to me."^^ 

You must not judge of Joyce by the butterfly crowd 
among whom you have mixed as a bachelor, in fastish Lon- 
don society. Joyce has a heart — 

^^Item: a memory, interrupts Farintyre, with mean- 
ing. ‘^Item: a temper — not a forgiving one! 8he has 
told me so, often; I respect her the more for it. How will 
that temper of Joyce^s brook the deceit that has been prac- 
ticed on her?^^ 

My dear Mr. Farintyre!^'' 

Little Mrs. Dormer really shivers at the coarseness of the 
expression. 

There are people in Eome, it seems, who know the de- 
tails of Eoger Tryan^s wretched business — who were in Nice 
at the time when it all took place. Well, I repeat what I 
said just now. I would sooner some of these people spoke 
out now, than — 

Hush! not a word ‘of this before her, whispers Mrs. 
Dormer, returning with quick presence of mind to the 
hearth^ as a step sounds upon the marble, outside. Why, 


A BALLROOM REPEKTANOE. 


209 


here is Joyce back already, and our fir-cones not lighted. 
And have you brought both sets, my love?'’^ looking round, 
all smiles and brightness, as the door opens. Then we 
will set about our illumination, put ourselves on the seat of 
j udgment, at once. ^ ^ 

Not an unsuggestive theme for an artist might be found 
in the group upon which this illumination rests. The fir- 
cones^ wavering pyramids of flame set forth the subtle lights 
and shadows of the vaulted Eoman room in powerful relief. 
They flood with transparent ruby Joyce’s blonde head and 
graceful figure, as, kneeling before the fire, she holds aloft 
one shining bauble after another, toward her mother and 
Mr. John Farintyre. Not an unsuggestive theme for an 
artist’s pencil: a telling subject, surely, for the moral anat- 
omist, if the hearts of those three persons — so near to each 
other, and yet so far — could but be laid bare beneath his 
scalpel ! 

When the judgment has been passed — Mrs. Dormer, 
even in the matter of pearls versus coral, gaining her way 
— when John Farintyre has kissed a farewell upon the cold 
white hands which, next Saturday, will legally be his, 
Joyce pushes pearls and coral away from her with a gesture 
of disgust. Her face wears the same strained, absent look 
that it wore on that fateful evening when she besought her 
mother to take her to Monte Carlo. She pushes pearls and 
coral aside; then wearily seating herself beside the fire, ut- 
ters a moan that startles even Mrs. Dormer out of her 
bland philosophy. 

Most people are familiar with the word moan ” (a con- 
venient rhyme for alone, groan, or stone) in ballads. It is 
a sound seldom heard amidst the whirl and tumult of this 
crowded, all-forgetting, every day life of ours. 

“You are overflushed, my child.* I don’t like that 
constant flush upon your cheeks.” And Mrs, Dormer’s 
voice is tremulous. Do not the hardest among us pity that 
which submits more readily than that which rebels! “ How 
would it be to spare ourselves the fatigue of this great Eo- 
man ball? We need all our strength at present — such fluc- 
tuating strength as it is!” 

Possibly, in her inmost soul, Mrs.. Dormer would be 
thankful to-night of the quiet of her own room; content to 
tide safely over another twelve hours in the direction of 
Saturday’s orange blossoms. 


210 


A BALLROOM REPEMTAKCE. 


‘‘I was never better in my life — ^bodily/^ is Joyce 
answer, And I am not such a coward as to wish to 
shirk the ball. I do not sleep much^, as you know — the 
result of my own obstinacy in respect of chloral, perhaps; 
and a ball gets rid of a night, or the worst portion of it. ^ ^ 
She clasps her hands above her forehead in such a fashion 
that her face rests in half-shadow, its expression all but 
hidden from Mrs. Dormer^ s sight. 

We have agreed only too often during the past two 
years — so, after a space, she resumes — ‘ ^ that Roger 
Ti’yan^s name should not be mentioned between us. I 
must break through the resolution this evening for the last 
time. 

As you like, Joyce. I am in favor of outspokenness 
always, still — 

After Saturday you may be sure I shall never talk — 
we will hope, shall never think of Roger again. But to- 
night, for the last time, I am going to weary you with the 
old, forbidden subject. Do you think it j^osstdle, mamma, 
that Roger Tryan can be in Rome?^^ 

‘^God forbid!^'’ exclaims Mrs. Dormer, startled out of 
her habitual self-command. Then, adroitly collecting her- 
self — I mean, she hastens to add, that Mr. Tryan ^s 
presence in Rome is of all things the most unlikely. Let 
me see. What were one^s last accounts of him?^^ 

You should know, mother. You have correspondents 
in Nice. I have none. 

Lady Joan mentioned some time ago, surely, that 
Roger Tryan^s friends, those terrible Pintos, had disap- 
peared from the Riviera; Corsica, as far as I can recollect, 
was said to be their harbor of refuge. To Corsica, no 
doubt, I — I mean —possibly, — Mrs. Dormer has the grace 
to falter — Roger Tryan may have accompanied them.^^ 
Joyce upon this looks up, a world of restrained, bootless 
yearning in her eyes. 

If Roger Tryan be in Corsica, it is certain — I told you 
the same thing that night in Pisa, mother- — that some un- 
canny gift of second-sight must be coming to me. For on 
Friday evening last I saw him.-"^ 

Impossible!'’^ 

Mr. Farintyre, as you know, had taken me to hear the 
‘ Tenebrae ^ at the Sistine chapel. It was near the end of 
the service. The psalms had been chanted, the lights. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


211 


save one, extinguished. As the long-drawn pianissimo 
notes of the ^ Miserere ^ were wailed forth in saddest minor, 
even the fainting, struggling mass of English ladies became 
silent. Just then, mother, I caught sight of a face, deadly 
white, against the black-hung wall, but as plain to me as 
Michael Angelovs ^ Last Judgment,^ at which, till then, I 
had been looking. That face was Eoger^s.^^ 

I repeat, Joyce, that it is impossible. This kind of 
talk is idle. 

Happily for Mrs. Dormer the fire ^s blaze has well-nigh 
died. Joyce can not detect the ghastly color of her cheeks. 

Yes, I know all that you would say, all that Lady Joan 
Majendie has written. Eoger Tryan at this moment is in 
Corsica, in the society of his friends, the terrible Pintos! 
As far as facts go, you may be right, mother. Yet none 
the less did I see Eoger^s face — altered, hollow-cheeked, 
with eyes that seemed looking back at me from another 
world — among the crowd who listened to the chantmg of 
the ^ Miserere ^ on Friday night. 

Mrs. Dormer is bending over the scanty warmth of the 
dying fire. She holds a pair of guiltily trembling hands 
toward its embers. 

If you do not cure quickly of your ‘ second-sight ^ I 
shall advise John Farintyre to consult a physician the mo- 
ment you reach London — Charming, she goes on, rally- 
ing with a strong effort, to see how the poor fellow studies 
your every wish! This little Park Lane nest will be so 
delightful until you can look about together for something 
permanent !^^ 

A few days before — on the morning, I believe, after at- 
tending that Good-Friday service — Joyce, in some moment 
of unusually frank dejection, confessed herself tired of 
Italy, of sight-seeing; and Farintyre (or shall we say Mrs. 
Dormer) telegraphed instantly to secure a furnished Lon- 
don house, no matter how small, so that it abutted on 
fashion and the parks, for the season. 

London has never been delightful to me latterly, moth- 
er, but I dare say it will seem a relief after Italy. There 
will be clubs in London, and Hurlingham, and city intelli- 
gence, and the Derby to look forward to. I feel that I 
could never go through the strain of foreign traveling with- 
out you to amuse Mr. Farintyre. 


212 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCL. 


Mrs. Dormer laughs gayly, all her cool self-possession, 
restored to her. 

In the days of our great-grandmothers there used to be 
a weird institution called the traveling bride-maid. Would 
you wish it revived under the still weirder form of the 
traveling mother-in-law ? ^ ^ 

It would be selfish to hinder you from going on to 
Naples, mother. Yet I think I shall need you more than 
papa can. Papa has his bric-a-brac hunting to amuse him, 
his tea-pots and snuff-boxes to keep him company, and 

You are in a lowered condition of health, my dear 
Joyce. As soon as you reach town Mr. Parintyre must 
take you to this Norwegian specialist whom everybody talks 
about. He finds a name for your disorder merely by 
touching certain nerves, treats his patients by ‘ chemico- 
psychology ^ throughout the London season, and in August 
packs them off for ozone and shell-fish to Nordeney. In 
these fitful nervous affections doctors walk, I suspect, in 
the dark. The empiricists have as much chance of success 
as the men of science. 

But are you quite sure my affection comes under the 
head'of ^nervousness,^ mother?^ ^ 

Quite positively sure,^^ answers Mrs. Dormer, this 
time without a change of color. The brain is anaemic — 
pending Nordeney and shell-fish — would no doubt profit by 
iron or phosphorus from the druggist^ s. In this nine- 
teenth century when denizens of the world begin to see 
visions and dream dreams, it behooves us to think of 
tonics. 

Which may be taken as little Mrs. Dormer ^s last utter- 
ance in the matter of sentiment. 


I 


CHAPTEE XII. 


EATA MORGAKA. 

The Orsini Easter ball — a time-honored fairy piece, 
almost as familiar to Eoman sig:ht-seers as the feet-washing 
of the pilgrims, the fireworks of St. Angelo, or the show- 
ing of relics in St. PetePs! As night advances, the usual 
outside crowd gazes upon the usual pageant of torch-illu- 
mined colonnades, balconies wreathed in exotic flower 


A BALLROOM REPEisTTAKCE. 


213 

bloom, busts and statues quivering under rose-colored 
light. In the ball-room, with its mirror-lined walls, its 
polished oaken floor, its classic, colossal Hercules, is a 
mob of over three hundred guests. Bearded artists, bored 
milords, Hew York beauties, violet-robed churchmen — 
everybody worth seeing, everybody worth speaking to in 
Eome, gathered together in the noblest reception-rooms, 
made welcome by the most charming host and hostess, in 
the world. 

And Joyce Dormer, next Saturday’s bride-elect, in her 
pink satin and pearls, and a dead heart within her breast ! 
Joyce Dormer, the all-unconscious heroine of that tragic 
story whereof men speak in whispers and women behind 
their fans, is, from the moment of her arrival, the living 
epigram, the little dramatic interest of the hour! 

Coming forward, with a not too easy air of ownership, 
John Farintyre claims the hand of his betrothed for the 
ensuing dance. 

Seems like getting back to the land of the living — 
have shaken off that confounded sense of chilliness for the 
first time since I came to Rome. ” He remarks this as the 
orchestra strikes up the opening notes of the third waltz. 

With politic discretion, Mrs. Dormer has contrived to 
arrive as late as courtesy to her hostess will allow. 

Chapels and tombs and catacombs may be jolly places 
enough if you have a taste for them. I have not. Hever 
distinguished myself in classics in my youth. Prefer hu- 
manity. Prefer the society of my fellow-creatures. ” 

^‘That is a very prettily turned bit of flattery,” says 
Joyce. Remember, Mr. Farintyre, I went with you to 
every chapel, tomb> and catacomb that you have visited. ” 

“ And you are with me to-night, „ are you not?” he re- 
torts. How could anything be enjoyable” — it is very 
rare for John Farintyre to hazard so direct a compli- 
ment — without you?” 

She lifts her glance to his and smiles the cold dutiful 
smile that she has trained her lips since the evening of 
Fairntyre’s arrival into wearing. 

But I don’t class Rome among things to be enjoyed. 
One may not dishke a turn along the Corso,” says Mr. 
Farintyre liberally, or the place with the little stalls and 
the music— what do you call it? — the Pincian. ” Joyce 
thinks, dimly repugnant, of her walks there in the wild 


214 


A BALLKOOM REPEKTAKCE. 


freshness of the spring morning, of the smell of the violets, 
of the palm-shadow where she daily read a prophecy of 
Eoger’s coming letter. But give me Piccadilly. I 
know Paris and Vienna and New York — what are they 
against London? I would sooner walk down Piccadilly 
than see the pictures of all the Louvres, the marbles of all 
the Vaticans in the world. Deuced glad I shall be to get 
away from pictures and marbles too — he passes his arm 
around his betrothed^s slim waist — after Saturday. 

Joyce makes answer with honestly unintentional sar- 
casm. 

If your Eoman experiences had been wider, you might 
have been less bored. Fox-hunting exists here, Mr. Farin- 
tyre, and hurdle-races are ridden by real English jockeys. 
People who like such amusements picnic to Metulla^s tomb, 
and light up the Coliseum with Chinese lamps; and on 
Thursdays, I believe, you may go in a party to Tivoli by 
train. Besides, if you had belonged to the club, you could 
have had as much cards and billiard-playing as you chose. 
Don’t run away with the idea that pictures and marbles 
and the Vatican constitute Eome.” 

Her tones are friendly, her lips still wear the cold and 
dutiful smile. But as they float off together, next Satur- 
day’s bride and bridegroom, among the throng of waltzers, 
the old feeling of jealous suspicion corrodes John Farin- 
tyre’s peace. Never has Joyce appealed more directly to 
his sense of physical admiration than she does to-night. 
Classically falling draperies, sad-colored artistic fltness, 
are not for all men’s comprehension, certainly not for John 
Farintyre’s. Could tastes, like rotes, be polled, would 
John Farintyre be in the majority or minority? He likes 
the brilliant shimmer, the soft frou-frou of a Paris-made 
pink satin, with a train reaching half-way across a ball- 
room, and a waist that is a libel on anatomy; likes to see 
the white arms of the future Mrs. Farintyre bared to the 
shoulder; likes to see his gift of pearls shining on throat 
and wrist, and among the delicate braids of her blonde 
hair. 

And still, at this moment — yes, as he feels her soft breath 
on liis face, as he clasps her waist, her hand — he knows 
that he holds her not! He knows that the finest, keenest 

E art of Joyce Dormer will never belong to him, that she 
as thoughts, emotions, likings, contempts, that no effort 


A BALLROOM REPEHTAKCE. 


215 


of his — no., not even the balance of Farintyre senior, at 
the banker ^s — will ever enable him to share. 

How if he had chosen a commonplace, faulty, fiesh- 
and-blood woman, say of the type of Eosie Lascelles, for 
his wife, admitting it be needful — he will only be four-and- 
twenty next autumn — for him to marry at all? A Eosie 
Lascelles — nay, even such a woman as Mrs. Dormer (and. 
Heaven knows, Mrs. Dormer has brains enough) — would 
not answer as much above your head as this girl does, would 
not look you through and through as these blue eyes, so 
piteously transparent, so infinitely sad in their unwitting 
cynicism, have the power to look! 

Thus ponders next Saturday's bridegroom. Mrs. Dor- 
mer, meanwhile, watches the lovers from afar, with a heart 
almost light. This ball-room vision of Joyce, as a doll, 
her hair not innocent of curling-irons, her silken skirts 
trimmed by Parisian fingers, with the exactly orthodox 
number of flounces, her arms and throat outrivaling the 
pearls they wear — this artificial vision, I say, seems so much 
likelier of becoming John Farintyre^s wife than the real 
J oyce Dormer has looked of late, in somber morning-dress, 
with hair drawn negligently from her pale and yearning 
face, and with her Stradivarius, Eoger Tryan^s gift, between 
her hands. 

What a magnificent creature the dear child will become 
in another year or so, can she but cease to fret over a cer- 
tain lamentable piece of past folly, and fill out physically 
and morally! How well suited will she be for the world 
and for wealth! Ho mother of fine culture, delicate feel- 
ing, could endure to see her daughter make a traffic of 
affection. The bare thought were repulsive. One^s desire 
is —that a daughter shall subordinate whim to reason, the 
present to the future. A woman^s youth, let her com- 
plexion wear as it will, is over before five-and-thirty. Sen- 
timent belongs to youth. Should not the sober half cent- 
ury that comes after marriage be printed in larger letters 
on lifers programme than the half-dozen intoxicated years 
— fullert of bitterness, often, when fullest of love — that go 
before? 

Mrs. Dormer watches the brilliant, silk-clad vision as it 
floats round in Farintyre ^s arms, with a heart all but 
lightened of anxiety. When the waltz is over, she has the 
added pleasure of seeing her daughter hemmed in by a 


216 


A BALLROOM REPEISTTAKCE. 


crowd of dancing-men — Eoman princes, Eussian attaches, 
an English duke even — all the best men,^^ feels Mrs. 
Dormer, with honorable maternal pride, in the room. 

Joyce surrenders her card, with her late learned cold 
smile, to each aspirant partner in turn, displaying no more 
warmth in the matter than she displayed in the choice of 
Eoman pearls and pink coral this afternoon. Another and 
another — why, the girl is having an ovation. Eeckoning 
in the dances reserved, by right, for our excellent John 
Earintyre, her card must be full. This evening may be 
considered safe. 

Scarcely has Mrs. Dormer had time to mentally italicize 
the word, when an opening among the crush of non-dancers 
reveals to her, at a few yards^ distance, Mr. and Mrs. 
Magrath, the insignificant British couple mainly through 
whose whispers Joyce has become the heroine of a tragic 
history in Eome. And for an instant little Mrs. Dormer, 
overborne by a presage of evil stronger than her courage, 
feels strength forsake her. An instant only! Then cross- 
ing the intervening space of polished floor with the airiest 
satin-slippered tread, she accosts and disarms the lady with 
a compliment. 

Overjoyed to see that Mrs. Magrath has come prepared. 
For Eeter, a poor little hectic man, whose head barely 
reaches his wife^s shoulder, carries a large roll of music- 
paper conspicuously. In every way desirable that ball- 
room frivolities should be seasoned by the intellectual pleas- 
ure of good music. A pity amateurs are so sensitive, ^an 
so seldom be induced to delight the feio, at these large 
mixed parties. 

My wife has all the attributes of genius, madame,^^ 
says Mr. Magrath inflatedly. Ye may nae be aware that 
iny Gerty, before she married me, was a T reddle. One of 
the celebrated Treddles. A whole family, madame, of 
geniuses. My Gerty feels nane o^ the ridiculous backvv^ard- 
ness in performing which is the bane of your raw amateur. 
Ye have na heard her in Bark?^^ Thus does Mr. Magrath 
style the master of passion music. Then ye have a real 
treat in store. The musical Albert Durer, some call Bark, 
just as others call Handel the musical Holbein. An artist 
by profession told me in London awhile back, he didna 
rightly appreciate what counterpoint meant until he heard 
Mrs. Pefej' Magrath in Bark. And the astounding thing 


A BALLROOM REPEKTANCE. 


217 


is, my Gerty is gude round, wi^ the voice or the piano. 
Gude in the delicious Italian phrases of Rossiny — this is 
how the poor little husband canters through his lesson — ^ 

or in the exquisite arpeggios, the delicate, chromatic 
sinuosities of Chopin. Mr. Magrath pronounces it 
Shopping. 

The delicate, chromatic sinuosities of Shopping! 

To her last hour, Mrs. Dormer^s memory will, I think, 
retain these parrot-like, pompous words. So, without will 
or effort of our own, do we bear about with us the nature- 
printed pattern of a wall-paper, the color of a carpet that 
trivially arrested our eyes at a moment when some key- 
note of happiness or of despair was abruptly struck. 

As Mr. and Mrs. Magrath pass away into the crowd — 
and forever from the boards of this little drama — a slight 
change of position brings her daughter into Mrs. Dormer^s 
sight. Joyce is on the arm of the young Baron Orsini, the 
elder son of the house; John Farintyre, a certain dismissed 
look on his heavy face, vanishing through portals wreathed 
with orange flower and stephanotis into the hospitable 
refuge of a neighboring refreshment-room. So much, with 
a lightning glance. Mrs. Dormer sees, undisturbed in 
conscience. All, still, goes well. A minute later, and her 
cheek flushes — pales! Her heart, under its silks and laces, 
beats, in a tumult of sudden fear. On Joyce’s other side 
— ah, evil omen! inscribing his name on the girl’s card — 
Mrs. Dormer recognizes young Hugh Longmore, the 
chance-made Clarens acquaintance to whom, simply in 
that he was disliked of Farintyre and liked of Joyce, poor, 
obscure, and in every possible way, unprofitable, she hoped 
that they had long ago bidden good-bye forever. 

Of what peril may not his ill-timed advent to-night be 
the forerunner? Without an instant’s hesitation, Mrs. 
Dormer makes her way across the mile to her daughter — 
the gracefullest, most self-poised little woman that ever 
threaded a ball-room crowd ! She gives young Longmore 
a friendly, unsuspecting glance from her soft eyes. She 
extends to him two fingers of each slim, primrose-gloved 
hand. 

This, indeed, reads like a fairy story! Did she not tell 
Mr. Longmore in Clarens that Italy was the true country 
of the Fata Morgana? All roads lead to Rome, and all 
friends seem to travel these roads if we wait long enough. 


218 


A BALLROOM BEPEKTAKCE. 


So pleased to renew one^s very short Swiss acquaintance. 
Mr. Longmore would, no doubt, be making some stay in * 
Eome? A few days, only. Every hour, therefore, will be 
of value. It would be quite too selfish to talk to Mr. Long- 
more of morning calls. A lancers — is this indeed a lancers 
that we see forming? Then Joyce and her partner must 
hold themselves pledged to a vis-a-vis, Mrs. Dormer has 
promised to walk through one square dance with Prince 
d^Orellana. Will Joyce and the baron think it terribly 
hard to have two old people in their set.^ 

Her smooth honeyed tone puts Longmore- designedly in 
the cold, just as it used to do in those Clarens days when 
the young Oxonian was first tumbling, headlong and hope- 
lessly, into love. The moment the lad has bowed himself 
into the background Mrs. Dormer contrives to whisper 
words the reverse of honeyed into Joyce^s ear. 

Mr. Longmore^s recognition of us is an indiscretion. 

I make it a personal request that you do not encourage 
him. For a girl in your position over-great popularity is 
not dignified. It is my wish that you do not dance with 
everybody to-night. ^ 

A glance almost of the old mirth flashes from Joyce^s 
eyes. 

Dance with everybody, mother? Considering that 
there are three hundred and flfty people gathered together 
here, would not such a fear border on the miraculous?^^ 

I am in no humor for jest. Amicability requires that 
you should give a few dances to our intimate friends oh, 
Mrs. Dormer, what of the Roman princes, the Russian 
attaches, the Enghsh duke? — tlie few dances that John 
Farintyre can be expected to resign. You will not, I hope, 
dance with any mere acquaintance, above all with a hotel- 
made acquaintance, like this young Longmore ?^^ 

This young Longmore did not seem eager to have such 
greatness thrust upon him,'’^ says Joyce. Something 
must have happened, I fear, to shatter our friend^s good 
opinion of us. I was obliged to send Mr. Farintyre across 
the room as embassador before I could get this young Long- 
more to vouchsafe a look of recognition at all.^^ 

Mrs. Dormer^s color deepens. A hasty word escapes her 
without her will. 

^^Impertinent! If Mr. Longmore^s feelings have so 
cooled — the better for Mr. Longmore! You will be spared 


A BALLROOM REPEN'TAKCE. 


219 

the trouble of telling him your card is full. The young 
man, of course, has not asked you for a dance?^^ 

‘‘ Uncertain whether the young man asked me, or I the 
young man,^^ is Joyce^s answer. In any case, Hugh 
Longmore^s initials are written on my card opposite num- 
ber eleven — the quadrille, mamma, that you and Mr. Farin- 
tyre have agreed to dance together.'’^ 

Mrs. Dormer groans in the spirit, yet has she no choice 
save to accept such bitter irony of facts as may be presented 
to her. Joyce, already, is moving into position with the 
baron; her own princely partner, starred, ribboned, de- 
crepit, advances across the room to claim his lancers. Two 
or three minutes later, and the sets have formed. 

Graceful, smiling, younger looking than her daughter, 
this more than Spartan mother reaps a harvest of admira- 
tion as she glides, with girlish airiness, through the figures. 
She makes the round of the ball-room, chatting soft noth- 
ings in her singularly correct Italian, and leaning on old 
Prince d^Orellana^s arm. After this, follow two round 
dances, danced, from first to last, by Joyce with successive 
notabilities. Poor Mrs. Dormer! those dances might well 
be called her Waterloo, the winding up and finish of all 
maternal triumph! Then comes number eleven, the num- 
ber opposite to which certain objectionable initials are writ- 
ten on Joyce^s card, the quadrille which John Farintyre 
has dutifully promised to dance with his future mother-in- 
law. 

For a time there seems hope that young Longmore may 
have awakened to some sense of his own impertinence — in 
existing! He is nowhere to be seen among the dancing 
crowd, is not among the m.en who cluster, in attitudes of 
greater or less weariness, around opened door-ways. At 
the eleventh hour, when most of the quadrille sets have 
formed, he reappears with the air of a man on duty rather 
than on pleasure bent, walks across to Joyce who, in spite 
of her mother^s counsels, has remained faithfully partner- 
less, and offers her his arm. 

Your Oxford friend, Longmore of Corpus, is deter- 
mined not to lose sight of us,^^ remarks Mrs. Dormer as 
Farintyre leads her away; delicately mindful of his future 
parentis taste, John Farintyre has organized a set contain- 
ing at least four titled or notable personages at the upper 
end of the room. 


220 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTAKCE. 


‘^Yes^and deuced white Longmore of Corpus looks, 
sullen as a bear, too — no getting an answer when Joyce in- 
sisted upon my speaking to him. What human motive 
could the man have in turning up here in Eome at such a 
time?^^ 

The old story, perhaps, of Lochinvar. Mr. Longmore 
has come to ^ tread biit one measure, drink one cup of 
wine,^ cries Mrs. Dormer prettily. 

The suggestion, did John Farintyre follow it, were surely 
a risky one. Longmore and Joyce tread no measure, it is 
true, drink no cup of wine. At this moment, however, 
they are vanishing from the ball-room hy a garden window, 
into scarcely orthodox darkness. 

Joyce behaved with admirable tact, with the greatest 
circumspection, during our stay in Olarens. Still, I am 
half afraid that the poor boy^s peace was endangered on 
the night of that momentous storm. It might be kind to 
include him among our wedding-guests on Saturday?^ ^ 

But Mrs. Dormer^s mind is not quite as tranquil as the 
any tones of her voice would betoken. 


CHAPTEK XITL 

JOYCE HEAES THE TRUTH. 

The northern windows of the Palazzo Orsini open upon 
a vast inner court. Around this court, on three sides, runs 
a covered colonnade. Beyond are vistas of garden, whence 
myrtle and lemon odors steal delicately through the mid- 
night gloom. In the background rises the city— roofs, 
domes, and cupolas vaguely discernible against a starless 
sky. 

For awhile Joyce Dormer and Longmore talk well within 
the bounds of dulcet inanity. Then abruptly the girl goes 
back to her old outspoken tone of frank companionship. 

Confess that your opinions of us have changed, Mr. 
Longmore — that you have no very strong wish of renewing 
our acquaintance? I promise not to be offended, she 
adds. It was an understood tiling between you and me 
from the first that we should tell each other the truth. 

And you are so used to sweets that a wholesome bitter 
might prove piquant, says Hugh Longmore. Men who 
live too long in Italy get surfeited, I am told, of sunshine 


A BALLROOM REPEOTAKCE. 221 

and blue skies. Miss Dormer has been fed upon flattery 
until it palls. 

You have the gift of insight/^ returns Joyce quietly. 

Miss Dormer is so accustomed to happiness that she would 
be glad — oh^ glad of the sensation of pain, as a new experi- 
ence! Is this intended as your answer, Mr. Longmore? 
You did not mean to recognize mamma and me to-night, if 
I would have allowed you to cut us?^^ 

I meant, when I came here, to stop half an hour at 
most,^^ is Longmore ^s answer. A friend I have in Eome 
oflered to get me an invitation. I accepted — if I am to 
speak truthfully — ^because I heard Miss Dormer was to be 
the interest of the evening! But I came as a spectator 
only, in no mood for pleasure. I saw you and Mrs. Dor- 
mer surrounded by your friends. Why should you be 
troubled by an obscure, chance-made acquaintance like 
myself?^^ 

When facts are unpleasant I like them told in few 
words. You meant to cut me, Mr. Longmore?^^ 

I waited, intending that the recognition should come 
from you, certainly. 

Joyce Dormer^s next question is put in a quick, short 
voice, unlike her own. 

And what has changed you toward us? You were 
hurt, perhaps, that I never wrote to you as I promised? 
Alas, it seems I have done no one thing that I ought this 
past winter. When we were at San Eemo the days went 
by in a sort of feverish dream. During our short stay at 
Nice every hour was disposed of beforehand. Our after- 
noons were given to visit-paying, our evenings wasted at 
parties — ^ 

Occasionally, perhaps, in visits to Monte Carlo ?^^ in- 
terrupts Longmore, with meaning. Pray, Miss Dormer, 
make no excuse. I did not seriously think you would write 
to me, even when you were so bored by the dullness of 
lakes and mountains as to promise it. 

And did you care very much about my silence ?^^ 

The question is timorous; from the lips of a vainer 
woman than Joyce Dormer might savor of , coquetry. 

I ^ cared ^ — just so much,"’"’ exclaims Longmore with- 
out a second ^s hesitation, that for weeks — ^yes. Miss Dor- 
mer, for weeks and months — the hour before the arrival of 
the foreign post seemed to myself the only hour in which I 


222 


A BALLROOM R^IPEKTANCE. 


rightly lived out of the twenty-four. Is that answer plain 
enough 

Joyce shrinks before the expression of his eyes. She 
trifles, as if in absent mood, with her bouquet, a stifily arti- 
ficial disc of Parmesan violets, across the center of which 
her monogram is worked in wired orange flowers; a gal- 
lantry, of course, of Mr. Farintyre^s. 

Among social arts, the art of friendship should, I am 
sure, be reckoned one of the hardest. The forced remark 
is made after a space of awkward silence. Evidently I 
have not learned the rudiments of it. Every friend I have 
drops away from me. And still, as regards you, Mr. Long- 
more, I thought in Clarens — 

Clarens belongs to the past, is forever done with,^^ he 
interrupts her brusquely. There is no recollection. Miss 
Dormer, that a man^s will may not, in time, help him to 
stamp out.^'^ 

Do you wish to stamp out the recollection of Clarens? 
To me that stay at the Hotel Scherer seems something alto- 
gether to the good, a few summer days, the thought of 
whicK will carry refreshment with it, whatever happens. I 
could not, if I chose, forget that evening when you and 
I took a walk in the direction of Glion. Mamma and Mr. 
Farintyre preferred playing cards by lamplight in the hotel, 
-SO we went out alone. You were patient enough, I remem- 
ber, to give me a lesson in astronomy. 

The first evening — when they talked of Arcturus, and 
chlorophyl, and Beethoven! The evening when, after an 
hour spent together in the ampler ether, the pale Elysian 
light, Longmore felt as though he and Joyce Dormer had 
been acquainted for years. Does he believe, in truth, that 
this recollection can ever come within the power of will to 
stamp out? 

And our pleasant afternoons on the terrace, one, es- 
pecially, when we talked of Wertherand Charlotte, and you 
read the ^ Prisoner of Chillon ^ aloud! And our disastrous 
expedition to Lord Byron ^s island! And all the music, a 
little too much of that, perhaps, to which mamma and I 
made you listen V’ 

Joyce ^s voice is earnest, fraught with sincere and kindly 
feeling. In her gleam of satin and shimmer of pearls she 
is looking fair enough to cause the distraction of many a 
colder-blooded man than Hugh Longmore, But the young 


A BALLROOM REPEOTAKCE. 


223 


Oxonian^s heart beats no quicker. Admiration, reverence 
for Joyce Dormer, have turned in him to something closely 
bordering on hatred —hatred, shall we say, in theory.^ The 
practical onlooker in these matters may be allowed to doubt 
the personal aversion of a man of three-and-twenty toward 
a beautiful girl (however heartless) whose finger-tips rest 
on his arm, whose breath mingles with his own in the mys- 
tic, odorous atmosphere of a Roman night. 

If I wished it, which I do not,^^ she repeats, I could 
never, while I live, forget our charming August days in 
Clarens. 

They have by this time, reached an extreme angle of the 
colonnade. The sounds of horns and fiddles and moving 
feet come to them faintly. A fountain, lighted by one 
quivering lamp, plays in the adjacent orange garden: its 
plash, heard through the darkness, recalls to Hugh Long- 
more the far-away lap of Lake Geneva, as he heard it in a 
moment of intoxication, a moment when two cold, little, 
thyme-scented hands were held abruptly across his face. 

One does not, literally, forget the happiest hours of 
one^s lifetime, he remarks with courage. “ But one may 
learn to look back upon them without the old, mad, crush- 
ing regret. That is all I dare trust myself to say, with my 
present feelings. I can look back without crushing regret 
upon those too-sweet summer days that I spent in Clarens. 

Joyce^s fingers quit her companion's arm. She turns 
from him with a gesture of real pain. 

‘‘ Everything in my life has got a warp in it. Even you, 
Mr. Longmore, of whom we know so little, of whom all 
that we did know was pleasant, have no wish to continue 
our friend. The Fata Morgana, my mother talks of, is 
against me, I suppose. 

Is not the Fata Morgana pretty much what we elect to 
make itr'’^ says Hugh Longmore. ‘‘ One of us chooses 
ambition, riches, a balance at his banker^s. Another, be- 
longing to a hopeless minority, is so old-fashioned as to 
prefer love — even although love be accompanied by the bit- 
ter disgrace of poverty. 

At the tone in which this remark is made Joyce^s heart 
turns sick. 

I believe human beings never understand each other 
well enough to pronounce hard-and-fast judgments,^ ^ she 
answers, almost humbly. How much, at this hour, does 


224 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKCE. 


Mr. Hugh Longmore know of Joyce Dormer? That she 
plays the violin up to the average oi dillettante players^ has 
blue eyes^ pale hair, a trick of manner — 

He interrupts her with sudden, undisguised passion. 

A trick of manner! Ay, and a low musical voice and 
a smile — and a pair of white hands! That is all I know, is 
it not? I am ignorant of Miss Dormer^s depth of feeling, 
her generosity, her compassion toward the friend who 
valued her slightest caprice more than his own life, her 
grief, her tenderness for this friend in his hour of need?^^ 

J oyce stands like one bewildered ; Longmore ^s words ring- 
ing, meaningless, in her ears; that most cruel of all fears, 
the fear of the unknown, taking vague possession of her. 

You wonder at seeing me in Eome, no doubt? Well, 
I will confess to you my reason for coming here. Last 
August an illness fell upon me — no mortal illness, but one 
that I could not shake off, as men and women of robuster 
sense are able to do. When I left England, ten days ago, 
it was with the hope of getting back to health. If I could 
only see a certain face that haunted me, press a certain 
hand before it passed forever into another matins keeping, I 
felt that my recovery might be quicker. It was horrible 
weakness, says the poor lad, pulling himself together with 
an etfort. ^^My life is not one of dreams, but of work, 
certainly is not a life in which twenty or thirty pounds can 
be thrown awa}^, for a whim, on railway traveling. But, 
even as late as a fortnight ago, I judged of things crooked- 
ly. Men blinded by love do not measure the extravagance 
of their own projects. And you know. Miss Dormer,'’^ in 
spite of himself Hugh Longmore ’s voice trembles with ex- 
cess of feeling, I was in love — why should I seek to hide 
it — until — 

Until repeats Joyce mechanically, as he pauses. 

Until I reached Mce,^^ he answers her, with emphasis. 
There my folly was cured, my sight restored to me, but 
by curiously different means to those upon which I had 
speculated. From Mce, as you may imagine, I paid a 
visit to Monte Carlo. 

His tone is significant: a glow of indignation is on his 
young and honest face. But J oyce betrays no faintest sign 
of answering consciousness. 

I also went to Monte Carlo once,^^ she answers simply. 
One January evening I took a wild fancy for seeing, the 


A BALLKOOM REPEiTTANCE. 


225 


‘ professors of the speculative sciences ^ at home, and poor 
mamma was argued into humoring me. It proved an al)- 
solute mistake, the worst-spent evening of my life. I 
never want to see, to think of, the Monte Carlo gambling- 
tables again. 

Her quiet self-command, the cold, resigned sadness of 
her voice, cause Hugh Longmore^s indignation to wax hot- 
ter. 

Monte Carlo should be a scene rich in dramatic mate- 
rial, Miss Dormer. At Monte Carlo, if anywhere, the 
artist nature should be able to play at emotion, should find 
the ‘ stuff ^ for insi3iration of which you talked to me that 
night of the storm off Chillon. Surely such an array of 
lost souls,^^ exclaims Longmore, ^^men without honor, 
women bereft of womanhood, might be the subject-matter 
for some prettily plaintive song without words — some 
adagio in a minor key?^ ^ 

The way in which this is spoken, rather than the S23eech 
itself, wounds Joyce Like a deserved reproach. 

I am afraid I thought too much of myself to observe 
others on that unfortunate evening. I was full of trouble. 
There was no need for me to play at emotion or search for 
dramatic ^ stuff. Looking back on it all now, the crowd 
of faces round the tables seem hardly distincter than the 
background of a bad dream. 

Still, although you did not see, you must have heard, 
goes on Longmore, with persistence. A child could not 
visit Monte Carlo and remain innocently obtuse to Monte 
Carlo realities. Why, the stories of the suicides alone. 
Miss Dormer— did they not touch you?^^ 

I heard no such stories. I was selfishly absorbed in 
my own thoughts during the whole of our stay in Isice/’ 
Yet their numbers are legion. Two nights before I 
was at Monte Carlo, proceeds Longmore, still narrowly 
w^atching his companion's face, some miserable creature 
blew his brains out, as he sat at one of the trente-et-quar- 
ante tables. For a little moment the play stopped. Then 
the attendants carried out the poor wretch'^s body, and the 
croupiers went on with their work of shuffling and cutting. 
What was the first impulse among the crowd of gamblers^ 
— to speculate, perhajDS, as to whether the dead man had 
left parents, a wife, children? Not a bit of it. Before the 
body was well outside the salle four or five j^^i’sons were 


226 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAI^CE. 


quarreling over the chair on which the suicide sat, believ- 
ing that to secure it, the victim^ s blood literally upon their 
hands, would bring them luck/^ 

The world overpowers us,^^ cries Joyce, her cheeks 
turning white with horror. ‘‘We are too heavily v/eighted, 
each of us, secretly, to think as we should of the burdens of 
others. 

“ Except in an artistic spirit, says young Longmore. 
“ An artist, stooping to conquer inspiration might ‘ bat- 
ter himself into sympathy^ — who was it invented that 
charming phrase? — even over the nameless graves that fill 
a corner in the Nice burying-ground. You must have 
heard something about the Frenchman who hung himself 
at the Hotel Printemps? That was in January, a short 
time, as far as I could make out, before Mrs. and Miss 
Dormer started for Rome. 

Joyce Dormer shudders. 

“ You are determined that T shall sup full on horrors, 
Mr. Longmore. If my poor mother, with her distaste for 
the sensational, could hear our talk!' 

Mrs. Dormer must find that the sensational forces 
itself occasionally upon her notice. 

“ When it does, mamma contrives to poetize facts. 
Never was a human soul so apt to discover the silver lining 
in all clouds as hers.*^^ 

“ A wise optimism. I am brought back to my unfin- 
ished story. The landlord of the Hotel Printemps was a 
philosopher bent upon seeing the brightest, best-paying as- 
pect of the most tragic events. ‘ Thank Heaven, Monsieur 
de Morigny chose a long cord. ^ Such were his reported 
words "wmen they broke into the dead man^s room next 
morning. And every gambler in the neighborhood rushed 
to buy a little morsel of the rope — the surest of all talis- 
mans to carry with them to the tables. Next in interest to 
the suicides, I fancy, come the duels. 

Longmore pronounces the w^ord with slow emphasis, then 
stops short, his glance riveted on Joyce ^s face. 

She has turned so that the lamp beside the fountain 
streams on her full. He can see that her color deepens 
not, that her blue eyes give back his gaze with perfect 
steadiness. 

‘ ‘ I thought duels had gone out of fashion, were only 
fought nowadays by Parisian editors over j^olitical articles, 


A BALLEOOM BEPENTAIS^CE. 


227 


or well-padded German students who have exchanged a 
‘ dnmmer Bnhe! ^ in the street. Men go to Monte Carlo, I 
have heard, to win fortunes and stay to lose them. l)o 
they quarrel with old Madame Blanc — she still lives, does 
she not? — or with the croupiers, or between themselves 
Surely that is an unnecessary question for you to ask!^^ 
Unnecessary?^^ 

You can not have forgotten the event which was the 
talk of all Nice no longer ago than last January?” " 
Joyce moves uneasily away. She believes, on Lady Joan 
Majendie^s showing, that Eoger Tryan is in Corsica; that 
her dream in Pisa, her vision of a haggard face in the Sis- 
tine, were phantoms — the result of faulty assimilation, of 
an anaemic brain! And still, although no faintest suspicion 
of the truth has dawned upon her, she feels ill at rest; con- 
scious that if Longmore has heard so much Monte Carlo 
news he must have heard more of Eoger, possibly of 
Eoger^s relations with Major and Mrs. Pinto, than he may 
choose to admit. 

I am afraid mamma and I are scandalously inditferent 
to gossip. We hear of startling events about six months 
after other people have grown tired of discussing them. 
With the exception of those hurried days in Nice our win- 
ter was spent in solitude. Latterly — I mean,^^ adds Joyce, 
recollecting herself, ‘ ^ before Mr. Farintyre arrived in 
Eome — I have had no thought for anything but my music. 
If time had been longer,” she goes on, after a little silence, 
I should like to have had your opinion on my work. I 
am dabbling in composition still/^ 

The last of your ^ Songs without Words, ^ I remember, 
was to be called ^ Shi]) wreck. ■’ When I met you in Clarens 
your sympathy was still with the people who commit fias- 
coes. Mrs. Dormer^s advice has, of course, 

After the stereoty^Ded andant-e movement, a4 di^ursive 
minor passage or two, you have ended everything cheer- 
fully in the resumption of the major key?” 

The song has grown out of all projDortions, and is more 
desparately mournful than ever. You recollect the story 
about Paganini ^s violin — how it was said that the virtuoso 
had killed his mother, and that her soul used to speak to 
him through the strings? The soul of something dead has 
been speaking- to mo, here, in Eome, through the strings of 
my Stradivarius. 


A BALLROOM REPENTAjq-CE. 


2^28 

‘‘And what/ ^ asks Longmore^ staggered by her calm- 
ness/ “ is to be the title of this new inspiration, this trans- 
lation into words of a voice from the dead?^^ 

“ Oh, I am constant to old names. The song shall be 
called ‘ Shipwreck,^ if the time ever comes when it is right- 
ly finished. During the past week or two,^^ she adds, with 
a sigh, “ I have begun to think that my musical days are 
numbered. My life would be more in tune if I were to 4ay 
my Stradivarius on a shelf, send it, perhaps, as an addition 
to the old violins at South Kensington, and never play, 
never compose another note. 

The sincerity of Joyce^s voice is not to be questioned. 
Callous, worldly, devoid of pitying womanly Idndness 
though Longmore believe her, he can with difficulty remain 
untouched before the pathos of her self-contempt. 

“ Such a course might be a prudent one,^^ he remarks 
presently. “ If sweet sound, as men say, be the great 
awakener of memory, it may be well for one^s peace. Miss 
Dormer, when the past is somewhat dark, to let sweet 
sound go/^ 

‘‘ Yes, I feel that, only too keenly, cries the poor girl, 
ignorant of his meaning. “ Still, music reminds me, 
often, that my memory is inconveniently good, and then — 
then I turn coward, ready to say, ‘ sufficient for the day is 
the frivolity thereof/ to live the life of the world, and jDut 
aside all the hopes of excellence I once had forever.-’^ 

“ To look for the silver — iDerhaps one might fitly say the 
golden — lining to the cloud. Admirable philosophy 

“ No true inborn artist could ever turn coward. True 
artists must wish to keep memory alive, no matter at what 
cost of happiness, must be willing to endure the acutest 
suffering, so long as it brought out the best expression of 
the best feeling that was in them.'’^ 

Then^oyce is silent; her face downbent in transparent 
half shadow, her clasped arms resting, with the grace that 
informs her smallest movement, upon the rose-t wined mar- 
ble balustrade. Far away, the fiddles and horns clang 
merrily; here, at hand, is the soft plash of the fountain. 
Across the garden, rise the dim outlines of sleeping Dome. 
Faint streaks of dying moonlight linger upon the far hori- 
zon. The portents of coming storm lower overhead. 

A question from Longmore breaks the stillness with 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 229 

startling abruptness — a question whose solid j^rose sends all 
the fairy, external poetry of the moment to the winds. 

Is the report now current in Eome a true one, Miss 
Dormer? Is an exceedingly gay wedding to take place at 
the British Embassy the end of this week? 

Joyce colors violently. 

" Exceedingly gay ^ is a strong expression. All wed- 
ding rejoicings are, to my mind, mistakes. But one must 
go with the crowd. I need not say, Mr. Longmore, tjiat I 
and my mother would wish to see you among our guests on 
Saturday. 

^ ‘ Mrs. Dormer did not look to-night as though she would 
wish to see me anywhere — Xaturally enough,'’^ adds 
Longmore, after a monient^s embarrassed hesitation. 

Mrs. Dormer guesses, doubtless, that I passed through 
Nice on my way to Eome. The sight of me may have 
awakened tragic remembrances that were better allowed to 
slumber. 

As he speaks — yes, before his words are fairly uttered — a 
suspicion, horribly intense, even in its dimness, has shot 
through Joyce ^s brain. 

MTiat dark mystery is this you hint at, Mr. Longmore? 
Do you know more than you care to say to me, openly? 
What tragic reminiscences has my poor little mother? How 
can it concern her that you hajDpened to pass through Nice 
on your road to Italy ?^^ 

‘‘ Simply because Nice lies close to Monte. Carlo, that 
men^s tongues have not ceased speaking — Miss Dormer, if 
you insist for she has drawn close, in her agony of fear 
has rested lier hand ui3on his arm. She looks up, with 
piteous eagerness, in his face — if you insist u23on the truth, 
men sjDeak still of the misfortune of a very old friend of 
yours. 

Go on; I am in the dark. You torture me by your 
slowness. Do you mean that mamma can hav’e tragic 
reminiscences of — of — 

But here s^^eech fails, her. Joyce Dormer^s white and 
trembling lijDS will not shape themselves into uttering 
Eoger^s name. 

Of Mr. Tryan,^^ says Longmore quietly. There can 
be no need, surely, to enlarge upon the subject. I hint 
only,/^ he adds, at that which the whole world knows — 
the unha2)23y quarrel into which Eoger Tiyan was forced 


i?30 A BALLROOM REPEisTAlS'CE. 

with a certain notorious Count Zecca^ twenty-four hours 
before Mrs. and Miss Dormer quitted Kice.'^^ 


CHAPTER XIV. 

ESCAPE. 

Durij^o some seconds of time Joyce is speechless; her 
hand^ rigidly clasped on young Hugh Longmore^s arm, 
trembles not. All she can realize is — that the external 
world has grown dark and narrow around her; that she has 
been deceived; that if Tiyan be dead, she will seek out his 
grave, press her lij^s to the cold earth that covers him, and 
so, peacefully die, and be with him, and away from John 
Earintyre (in this supremest moment she can think of that) 
— away from John Earintyre for evermore! 

‘‘ If you would have the kindness to tell me all you 
know. So, at length she speaks — can these indistinct, 
husky accents be Joyce Dormer ^sr The news, you see, 
has come a little suddenly. Mamma must have kept things 
back from me, for the best, of course. My mother could 
only have acted for the best — she is over-watchful, she ex- 
aggerates my weakness ! But I am quite strong. I can 
bear more than mamma would think. I ask, Mr. Long- 
more, to be told all you know.''^ 

Is she acting a part with finished delicacy, throughout, 
or is this nature? Flying to the extreme of skepticism, 
after the manner of most very young men in whom belief 
has been nevd}' shattered, Longmore, for a few more mis- 
taken minutes, believes her to be acting. Poor in purse, 
insignificant in position, he, Hugh Longmore, is still a 
quandam worshiper, and Joyce Dormer Avill not show in 
her true colors, in her unwomanly heartlessness, before him. 
The goddess would fain remain on her j^edestal, the 
^joquette retain her hold ujdoii her victim ^s respect, to the 
last. 

‘^I know no more. Miss Dormer, than what the idle 
Is ice world commonly talks of. Two English ladies, 
friends, in his j^almier days,^of poor Tryan^s, went over to 
Monte Carlo one evening in January last — prompted, who 
shall say by vdiat ca23rice? After watching the play for 
awhile the younger of the ladies was seen to leave the 
rooms on Tryan^s arm. What had gone before, the exact 


A BALLKOOM EEPENTAKCE. 


231 


circumstances which brought him into a quarrel with 
Zecc^, are unknown — it might be juster to say are known 
only to the principal actors in the drama. The facts that 
followed were such as all the gossiping tongues in Nice 
could neither add to nor gainsay. Count Zecca is a shame- 
fully notorious duelist. You have heard his sobriquet of 
course? ^ The Monte Carlo Fitz-Gerald. ^ 

A stifled assent bursts from the girks overcharged heart; 

A gentleman whose hands are as clever in the use of 
the sword or pistol as in the packing of cards or cogging of 
dice. A scoundrel/^ says Longmore hotly, down to the 
ground! Well, it was a boast of Count Zecca^s that he go^ 
over his affairs ‘ of honor ^ quickly, liked to send iiis chal-"^ 
lenge and have his man neatly finished within the twelve 
hours He did so now. Soon after sunrise next morning, 
Roger Tryan was quixotic enough to give this professional 
murderer a meeting. They exchanged shots just outside 
the territory of Monte Carlo. Tryan fired in the air. 
Count Zecca took his usual scientific aim — and his victim 
fell! That, I believe,^ ^ the words are spoken with empha- 
sis, was the day before Mrs. Dormer and yourself started 
for Rome. 

Joyce is colorless as the marble pillar at her side. 
Abandoning Longmore ^s arm, she stands with hands 
clinched, with features shrunken and livid. No sound 
passes her pale lips. Tears, the capacity of ever shedding 
tears again, seem frozen in her horror-stricken, dilated 
eyes. 

With a strained, automatic gasp, speech at length escapes 
her. 

I am rightly punished — my first falseness has borne its 
fruit! And to think that I never went to him, never wrote 
a word, I who — ah, if I had known, if I had not been 
cruelly deceived, do you supjDOse,^^ cries Joyce, with an im- 
pulse of fierce self -disdain, that I should be here, dressed 
as I am, merry-making, dancing? 

Impossible to doubt the white anguish of her face, her 
voice ^s passionate despair. 

It was not my place to speak to you of this,^^ cries 
Longmore, moved almost to compunction. “ If wrong has 
been committed, it is irrevocable. The past is past.-’^ 

But the future — do you tell me that can not be 
changed?^" Joyce asks wildly. Am I not — God be 


232 


A BALLROOM REPENTAi^CE. 


thanked — my own inistress still: Oli^ I see things clearly 
now/^ she exclaims, as remembrance after remembrance, 
each in itself a moral j)roof, crowds on her excited brain : 
her dream in Pisa, the voice from the dead that has forever 
pursued her in Rome, the specter face at the Sistine chapel 
— all the symj)toms of nervous instability that quinine and 
iron were to set right. I have had warnings enough, 
and I turned from them. I have allowed myself, like a 
fool, to be led blindfold, and now — Mr. Longmore, have 
pity on me! Do not say that the past is past, that wrong, 
however great, may not be undone 

^ She stretches forth her hands, she totters an uncertain 
step or two in the direction of the ball-room; then colon- 
nade, and garden, and outlines of sleeping Rome, wliirl 
round before Joyce^s sight; the fountain is silent; horns 
and fiddles and bassoons cease to play. The timely su])- 
port of her companion '’s arm alone keejos her from falling. 

Longmore leads, almost carries, the girl to a low stone 
bench in the outer air. He steeps her handkerchief in the 
cool water of the basin and presses it to her forehead. 

‘‘I did not know I was so weak.'’ ^ So, as she rallies 
from her swoon, Joyce begins to murmur. Weak, at the 
moment when I need strength as I never needed it be- 
fore 

Your absence will not have been noticed. Miss Dor- 
mer. Rest here until your faintness j)asses, and when you 
return to the ball-room — 

I shall go away from this place and from Rome,^’ she 
exclaims, rising with *a convulsed effort to her feet. A 
train leaves for the north at day-break, and I shall start by 
it. Yes, I mean to leave my mother and all of them, to 
go where, perhaps, I may still be of a little use. You will 
help me, will you not? I look to you, Mr. Longmore, as 
to the one person in Rome who can befriend me. You will 
help me to start upon my journey, if— ah Heaven,’*’ she 
cries, her voice sinking under the terror of the thought, 
if it be not too late!’'’ 

The moment is critical. As Joyce Dormer^s stern, self- 
elected judge, young Longmore knew that every approach 
to his heart was frozen. In this altered, dangerous post of 
consoler he finds his stoicism melting like snow beneath an 
April sun. 

It is not too late/^ he answers, under his breath. 


A BALLROOM REPENTAXCE. 


2 00 


“ Koger Tryan lives/^ For a second it seems as fchongli 
Joyce would fall upon his neck at the tidings. More 
than this, Roger Tryan has progressed so far along the 
road to recovery that, a week ago, he left Nice, against the 
doctor ^s advice, for Rome."'^ 

For Rome?^^ she echoes, with a return of natural color, 
with tears at last softening the wild horror of her eyes. 

Roger Tryan is here, and you have been all this time 
breaking the news to me. He is stronger — well, then, is 
getting back to his strength? I shall be able to see him 
to-morrow, early: Oh, Mr. Longmore, answer me. If 
you knew how terrible it is to be kept in this uncertainty. 

And Longmore obeys: strengthening the story he has to 
tell by no cruel, unnecessary detail, but extenuating noth- 
ing, tinting nothing in rose-color. On the first day after 
his arrival in Nice it chanced that the late Monte Carlo 
scandal was discussed among a party of Englishmen at the 
table crhote. From their talk Longmore gathered that 
Zecca, immediately after the duel, had taken flight —it was 
supposed had joined a certain Major and Mrs. Pinto hi 
Corsica; that Roger Tryan, still weak from his wound, was 
staying, alone and unattended, on an upper floor ^f this 
very hotel. Longmore^s window opened upon a terrace 
where the invalid was accustomed to walk feebly to and fro 
in the morning sun. By the end of four-and-twenty hours 
an acquaintance was struck up between them, and — 

Ah, I can imagine the rest!^^ cries Joyce, a crimson 
flush overspreading her excited face. In his weakness, 
his loneliness, you became Roger Tryan*s friend! Yon 
heard from his own lips the history of that miserable 
quarrel and its cause. You heard how mamma and I left 
Nice. No wonder you had learned to hate, to despise me! 
No wonder you almost refused to hold out your hand when 
we met to-night. 

Do not make me more ashamed than I feel already, 
Miss Dormer, of my own barbarism. From Roger Tryan 
I heard less of his affairs than from every other person to 
whom I spoke in the hotel. Once, I know, on my pressing 
him, he said that the cause of the duel was a stupid collision 
that took place beside the trente-et-quarante table, a 
collision that a fire-eater like Zecca was safe to construe 
into insult. ^ If I had had a grain of sense, ^ said poor 


234 A BALLKOOM KEPEISTTAKCE. 

Tryan, in that j)leasant, half-jesting voice of his — you re- 
member it?^^ 

Yes^ Joyce Dormer remembers. 

^ — I should have started for Paris^ England, anywhere 
beyond the Monaco territory, as soon as I saw what mess I 
had fallen iifto. But I have been consistently unwise, all 
my life,^ Tryan added. ^ I remained, and, while Count 
Zecca^s sense of honor is satisfied, have no worse crime 
than folly resting on my conscience. 

^^And he made no allusion to us? Eoger Tiyan never 
spoke to you of our conduct?^'’ 

The names of Mrs. Dormer and yourself were first 
mentioned to me, the day before I left. Then — 

You need not revise your words, Mr. Lon 2 :more. 
Then?^^ 

I told Tryan that I had an object in reaching Eome 
by an early date. I also told him — on the authority of a 
paragraph in ^ Galignani ^ — that the marriage of John 
Earintyre and Miss Joyce Dormer was fixed for the Satur- 
day in Easter week. 

Joyce moves a restless pace or two away. She looks 
forth, with blank, unnoticing gaze, upon the dusky orange 
groves, the panorama of leaden gray domes and roofs and 
€U23olas that lies beyond. 

And that evening, half an hour after I had spoken to 
him of you, Tryan announced his resolve of traveling on 
to Italy, at once. It was useless to talk of prudence — use- 
less for the surgeon to command. He wanted Southern 
air and sunshine, wanted to get away from all the sorry 
associations of his illness and of Monte Carlo. In a word. 
Miss Dormer, he wanted to reach Eome, as many days as 
might be before the Saturday in Easter week! To order 
an invalid coxife, to see that he traveled with a minimum 
of risk and fatigue, was all Eoger Tryan ^s friends could do 
for him. 

And he arrived in Eome — when?^^ 

As she asks this, a j^ang of cruelest compunction goes 
through Joyce DormeEs heart. Must not Eoger, ill in 
£i3irit and body, have watched her during the driving and 
sight-seeing of the last busy fortnight? Must he not have 
seen her in the Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill, in 
all the gayest haunts of Eome, untroubled, to outward 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 235 

seeming, by regret or remorse, with John Farintyre by her 
side? 

Mr. Tryan reached Eome the middle of last week. He 
traveled direct. I took the longer route by Florence. If 
all had gone well, the plan was that we should meet here, 
at the Hotel Washington, on the night of Easter Mon- 
day.'’^ 

‘ ^ If : SjDeak to me of things as they are, not as they 
prettily might have been,^^ cries Joyce, with the im- 
patience of a woman whose heart prophesies some evil thing 
she shrinks from hearing. What do you mean by ‘ il’? 
You followed Mr. Tryan to Eome — you found him making 
progress, stronger for the change? Oh, it is cruel, cruel to 
keep me in such susioense! It is impossible that you can 
have any further ill news to tell me!^^ 

Longmore turns his eyes away in pity from her face. 

I have to tell the truth, by your own command,^'’ he 
answers, and the 'truth is that Eoger Tryan does not 
make progress. He bore the journey well — so much I have 
gathered from some of the English-sj)eaking people at the 
Washington — but once in Eome, refused to put himself in 
the doctor^ s hands, or to take the commonest care as to his 
hours of going out or coming in. You must know the 
dangers of Eoman air. Miss Dormer, even for persons in 
health. To a man weak from recent loss of blood — 

Be quicker she exclaims, with a gesture of agonized 
impatience. Let me know the worst you have to tell. 

Eoger Tryan went on Friday to the service of the 
Sistine Chapel. 

Where Joyce saw him; no hallucination of the angemie 
brain, but her old lover in the flesh; her old lover— hag- 
gard, hollow-eyed, as he watched her at the side of the 
lover of to-day! 

He came back to his hotel, faint and worn-out, toward 
midnight, and next morning was down with malarial fever. 
The poor fellow is well looked after. Dr. Byrne, one of 
the first Eoman physicians, visits him. He is nursed by a 
sister of the Bon Secours. But his strength, Miss Dormer, 
is not good. 

I understand you. Go on. ~ 

^ ^ If we could learn the address of his relations in Eng- 
land — Dr. Byrne thinks some one belonging to him 
should be telegraphed for at once. 


23G 


A BALLEOOM REPENTANCE. 


Some one belonging to him I Joyce Dormer repeats 
the words mechanically. She stands, as though numbed 
by the violence of this final blow. The lamp-light falls 
in waves of roseate light 1123011 her silks and laces, upon 
the jewels in her hair. Tinkle, tinkle go the violins 
and horns to wliich the gay Eoman world is dancing— the 
gay Eoman world, bidden next Saturday to the celebrating 
of her own wedding-feast I 

After a long silence she turns slowly round toward Long- 
more. She rests a Iiand that no longer trembles on his 
arm. 

Will you do something very good-natured for me, Mr. 
Longmore? Hel23 me to get back, with as little notice as 
may be, through the ball-room. I am going at once home 
to my mother^s lodging, and then on to Mr. Tryan^s hotel. 
I must see his nurse, find out — rather late in the day, but 
never mind that — if I can be of use.^^ 

I am afraid you can do little for him, dear Miss Dor- 
mer, says Longmore, with grave kindness. The land- 
lord of the Washington, frightened out of his wits, like all 
these Eomans, at tlie thought of their own fever, had the 
poor fellow carried at once to a lodging. He is quiet there, 
the doctor says, and well nursed. You would only run 
useless risk by going to him— doubtful, indeed, if Tryan is 
any longer in a condition to recognize you. 

shall recognize hinyj^ Joyce Dormer answers, sim- 
2 )ly, calmly, as though they discussed some matter of every- 
day interest. ‘ ^ As to risk — even supposing Eoman fever 
to be contagious — is life so sweet that one should set a 
miserly store by it? Ko, Mr. Longmore, 110 .’^ She adds 
this with the shadowy reflection of a smile. I may not 
even have the consolation, now or hereafter, of imagining 
myself a heroine. I am common23]ace, as I have always 
been, through and through. 

Longmore gives here his arm without another word. A 
tumultuous galojD is just now in course of execution; and 
the^ din of the dance-music, the sea of whirling human 
fantoccini come to Joyce^s aid. Unseen of watchful 
mother or jealous sweetheart, they tide safely through the 
ball-room into harbor of a vestibule, a dimly lit retreat, 
where only a few engrossed, unobservant cou23les are whis- 
pering in exotic-bowered corners. A short S23ace more, 
three or four a23artments quickly 23assed through, and esca23e 


A I3ALLKOOM REPENTANCE. 


2S7 


— Joyce^s ove: strained heart beats freer at the thought — is 
assured. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THROUGH ROME AT MIDNIGHT. 

Here, then. Miss Dormer, I will wait for you,^^ says 
Longmore, when they reach the bottom of the central 
staircase. ‘‘ Or, while you go to the cloak-room for your 
wraps, shall I see wh.at prospect there is of finding a car- 
riage outside 

I need no wraps, Joyce answers firmly. My moth- 
er is in possession of the cloak-room ticket, and I will not 
leave your arm, Mr. Longmore, or run the chance of delay 
now that I have got so far. Night air? Oh, I am proof 
against it. Surely you remember enough of our Chillon 
adventures to know that cold and wet do not harm mel"^ 

And then, attracting looks of blank wonder from such 
lackeys, gentlemen ^s gentlemen, and other idlers as chance 
to be hanging about the entrance door, they walk forth to- 
gether, Lochinvar fashion, into the open air. 

No charger stands near. Not a vehicle, public or pri- 
vate, is to be seen. 

The earliest carriages are ordered to be in the Piazza 
Barberini at one o^clock; and it is not yet midnight. The 
sky has grown blacker during the past ten minutes. The 
wind is sharp; charged, too, with a Campagna mist, fast 
turning into a steady downpour of rain. And Joyce is in 
satin and gauze. Her arms are bare to the shoulder, her 
throat is uncovered. Ere she has taken a dozen steps, her 
trailing skirts, her silken dancing-shoes, are soddened 
through by the wet and defilement of the Roman pavement. 
Turn back? Nay. After the ball-room^s heat it must do 
them both good to breathe this quickened air. Such is her 
answer to young Hugh Longmore^s expostulations. The 
rain, the cold, the absence of human faces, are a refresh- 
ment. Turn back for shelter — send a servant for a car- 
riage? No, a thousand times no. Who can tell, her voice 
trembling with excitement as she speaks, what even five 
minutes^ loss of time might involve? 

And, clinging fast to Longmore^s arm, gathering her 
ruined ball-room draperies round her as best she can, Joyce 
struggles on. 


238 


A BALLROOM REPEJS'TAis'CE. 


They make their way along the Piazza Barberini, as 
heedless of the weather as of the per Bacclio ! that proceeds 
from every cloaked and muffled Eoman who comes across 
them in the darkness, then turning short to the right, strike 
into the Via Felice and so obliquely gain the Trinita di 
Monti. From the Trinita they must run — wade, rather — 
across the flooded Piazza di Spagna, the rain, by this time, 
rushing as only Eoman rain can, down all the hills and 
sloi^ing roofs of the city. A few minutes later — thirty yards 
of a -narrow, lava-paved street swiftly traversed, a portiere 
rudely wakened from his sleep — and they are ascending the 
tumble-down marble steps of the palazzo in which Mrs. 
Dormer lodges. 

Silence reigns throughout the building; a solitary oil 
lamp burns in the entrance hail. On reaching the third 
floor, Hugh Longmore, at Joyce^’s bidding, hammers with 
muscle upon the sixteenth-century knocker which serves 
for the different suites of apartments on the loggia, calling 
forth by his blows a very legion of echoes from all quarters 
of the palazzo. After a time, chinks of light stream 
through a neighboring hinge; a frightened Lor^ bless 
,me!^^ is breathed, in unmistakable British accents, from 
out a half-opened door. And then Mistress Smart*, the 
fine, newly hired London waiting- woman, enters upon the 
scene. 

Need I describe how that waiting-woman^s brow elevates 
at the spectacle presented to her? Miss Joyce Dormer, 
her mistress, in posse, sans hood and mantle, with brill- 
iant Parisian braveries limp and disheveled, with satin 
shoes the color of the streets; a young man (not Mr. Farin- 
tyre) in evening attire, white-tied, lavender-gloved, a man, 
also bare-headed, and also limp and disheveled, for Miss 
Joyce DormeFs sole escort! 

Smart has waited ere this in families dating from the 
Conqueror. AVhen the necessity of an abigail first became 
manifest, it was Mrs. Dormer^ s harmless pride to secure 
one direct — yes, with the very bloom on— from the stormy 
service of the just-buried old Countess of Wendover. 
Smart has perused many unwritten editions of the lives 
of the great. She knows that queer family discussions 
arise, even among persons of Norman blood; is broken in 
to more duties than those of hair-dressing and millinery; 
has learned when to speak, when to be silent. The pres- 


A BALLEOOM REPENTANCE. 


239 


ent exiDerience is new to her. Never, in Smart^s recollec- 
tions, was the great eleventh commandment so oj)enly set 
at naught. Never did'~tlie most dramatically rebellious 
heroine perambulate city roads, cold, wet, bare-headed, in 
dancing-slippers, with insufficient chaperonage, at mid- 
night. 

The proprieties are outraged. With elevated brow. 
Smart purrs forth respectful surprise — serni-admonitoiy. 

‘‘Miss Dormer — ma^am! wliich I hope nothing serious 
has happened to your mamma, or — 

“ Nothing serious has happened to mamma, or to any 
one,^^ Joyce cuts her on the instant short. Then turning 
hurriedly to Longmore: “It seems forced upon me always 
to treat you with scanty ceremony, the girl whispers. 
“ That night in Clarens when I owed my life to your cour- 
age I left you — about as drenched as you are now — outside 
the door of my mother’s room. I am about to show my 
usual gratitude, ask you to sally forth again into the wet 
and darkness of the streets.” 

“ I know. I understand exactly what you mean,” is 
Longmore’s answer. “ You wish me to go back, straight 
to the Palazzo Orsini, break the bad news to Mrs. Dormer 
and Farintyre, then — ” 

“ I wish you, while I am putting on my cloak ami hat, 
to look for a vettura* Afterward, I shall ask you to drive 
with me to Eoger Tryan’s lodging. You know the ad- 
dress?” 

“Dr. Byrne wrote it down before I left him. ” Long- 
more takes a card from his breast-pocket and reads aloud: 
“ Seventy- three. Via Nono, a small street close to the 
Monte Giordano!” 

“ We have not a moment to lose. Turn to your right on 
leaving the house, and the next bend of the street will 
bring you into the Corso. Even in this weather, at this 
hour, conveyances of some kind are likely to be iDassing 
there.” 

A shake of the hand is exchanged between them — a mute 
ratification of their almost forfeited friendship. Then, 
Hugh Longmore’s figure having vanished down the black 
well of staircase, Joyce takes a chamber-lamp from Smart’s 
agitated clasp, and makes her way through the salon to her 
own room. 

True daughter of Eve, she flies, even in this hour’s 


240 A BALLROOM REPEXTAXCE. 

agony^ to her looking-glass. With a mingled feeling, 
partly horror, partly compassion, she examines the image 
her looking-glass presents to her. 

Joyce Dormer — by the world called a spoiler of men ^s 
23eace, an empress over men^s hearts: this, then, is what an 
hoards remorse, a ball-room repentance, a little bodily cold 
and tiredness, have brought her to! Which of her suitors, 
she thinks, with the spirit of self-torture that at such mo- 
ments treiiches so nearly upon humor — which of her suit- 
ors would be faithful if he could see her novr? 

For her beauty — at all times the perfection of grace, ex- 
pression, youthful winsomeness, rather than of feature — is, in 
rruth, beauty to fade, as it blossoms, in a breath. At this 
moment, the oval of her face drawn and exaggerated, her 
blue eyes wide and pale, her lips bloodless, her delicate hair 
soddened by the rain, Joyce Dormer looks a specter, a 
wreck of her old self (there is bitter sweetness in the feel- 
ing), on which any one who knew her formerly must look 
with aversion, however much that aversion were tempered 
with pity. 

What a contrast to her moral despair, her physical un- 
comeliness, are the heaps of costly toys, fresh from jeweler 
and modiste, with which her room is strewn; the livery of 
the bondage into which she had so nearly sold herself, and 
that was to have been paid for next Saturday — at the price, 
only of a human soul ! 

Next Saturday — 

With feverish haste, Joyce Dormer exchanges silken 
trains, Parisian furbelows, for a close-fitting black stuff 
gown — chosen, you may be sure, from Joyce Dormer’s 
modest wardrobe, not from the overfiowing trousseau of 
the future bride. Then she gathers together every present 
of worth that she has forced herself to accept from John 
Farintyre, makes them into a parcel, which she directs to 
him, and leaves conspicuously placed on the center of her 
dressing-table. And then, mastering her repugnance for 
the task with strenuous efforts, she brings her hand to 
write a few words of farewell to Mrs. Dormer. Words of 
wild rebellion — twenty-one years of love, reverence, duty, 
turned suddenly to madness! Words such as, I hope, few 
of us who have children will ever merit should be. written 
to ourselves! 

Reverence! Has Mrs. Dormer reverenced her best, be- 


A BALLROOM REPEXTAXCE. 


241 


cause her most natural, human feeling? Duty! Was it 
dutiful to let her believe Eoger Tryan untrue, to let her 
flaunt her heartlessness as a virtue, show herself iDublicly 
before men^s gaze with Farintyre at the very time when 
Roger Tryan ^s voice, in its last fluttering anguish, might 
be vainly calling on her name? 

have heard the truth, mother. I understand the 
paragraph in the newspaper, the dream I had in Pisa, as 
you must have understood both, at the time. And I am 
doing that which 3"ou a!id I, together, ought to have done 
in ^ice. I am going as a nurse to Roger Tryan to-night. 
He followed us to Rome, last week. You knew that, also, 
of course? You knew that it was Roger ^s face, not a phan- 
tom of my own brain, that I saw in the Sistine chapel? 
Perhaps you have not heard that he has been struck down 
by Roman fever, is alone, dying. I must ask you to give 
Mr. Farintyre back his presents, and say that everything 
from this hour is over between us. 

How am I to forgive the wrong that has been done to 
Roger and to me? There is no forgiveness — only hardness 
and despair in my heart. 

Joyce. 

When the bedroom door at length opens and Joyce Dor- 
mer walks forth, storm-clad, in somber hat and veil, ready 
for her enterprise, Mrs. Smart, who, in the interval, has 
kept discreet vigil beside the ke^^hole, fairly starts from her 
post. 

You are looking shockingly pale, ma^am, and the 
weather grows worse and worse. Mr. Farintyre^s courier 
has told me that these cut-throat foreign places are never 
safe after midnight — I do trust. Miss Dormer, you have no 
intentions of venturing out?^^ 

Smart is a tall, upright woman, of juvenile middle age. 
Her voice is pitched at a constant and suggestive stage 
whisper; her manner of folding her hands is sleek; her eyes 
do not permit themselves the liberty of looking higher than 
her interlocutor's chin. Aggressive respectability, the very 
pink of Servants^ Hall Philistinism, reside in her Oxford 
Street mob-cap, her Oxford Street brooch and chain, in 
every bristling fold of her Oxford Street black silk dress. 

Joyce shrinks, like one mortally struck, from the tone of 


242 


A BALLKOOM EEPE^y-TAis^CE. 


unctuous remonstrance. This woman^s presence brings 
before her all that in her souTs jiaasionate revolt it is death 
to remember — money^ jewels, milliners, marriage-settle- 
ments, traveling-cases, and the name that was to have been 
hers, till the grave should part her from it, next Saturday. 

I am sure, ma^am, Mr. Farint^Te would be apprehen- 
sive— -Mrs. Dormer would not think it prudent for you to 
venture out — 

So, with suave intonation. Smart is once more begin- 
ning. 

Mr. Parintyre^s apprehensions will soon lessen, inter- 
rupts Joyce, a queer, frozen sort of smile upon her lij^s, 
and Mrs. Dormer knows my liking for bad weather! I 
have been summoned to attend a friend who lies, here in 
Eonie, sick unto death. .You will repeat that, if you 
please, when they return. My mother, I have no doubt, 
missed me from the ball-room, and Mr. Farintyre will be 
likely to bring her home. Say, simjDly, that I have been 
called to the bedside of a dying friend, and give mamma a 
note and parcel that you will find upon my dressing- 
table.^^ 

If it is your wish that I should accompany you. Miss 
Dormer, I will do so, of course. I was sent out here in the 
dark, as one may say — the agency offices are that inac- 
curate!^^ The woman glances round, with a sniff of disa])- 
proval, at Mrs. Dormer^s artistic salon — a barely furnished 
vault, as seen by SmarFs London-trained eyes; scagliolo 
floor, majolica tiles, cinque-cento carving, and nineteenth- 
century cobwebs, all valued together at zero. I never 
thought that duties out of the ordinary would be required 
of me. Still, if a fellow-creature is lying ill, I hope I 
know my Christian obligations. In the Earl of Wendover^s 
service, our chaplain used to say — 

Joyce turjis away with a scarce-supi^ressed movement of 
impatience. Hastily pushing open the salon door, she 
crosses a tiled corridor that runs along the entire length of 
the third story; then, bending over the worm-eaten .oaken 
balustrade, gazes down into the darkness of the stairs, and 
listens intently. 

Yo sound save the vague moans and creakings of old age 
is to be heard throughout the ])alazzo, Kot a footfall dis- 
turbs the quiet of the narrow street, outside. The city^s 
very heart seems sleeping fast. Abruptly, as Joyce waits. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAIS'CE. 


243 


her brain on fire, her pulses beating fever-quick, one 
o^clock — proclaimed, clear and ghostly, from three hun- 
dred Eoman Church tongues — brings home to her the need 
of instant action. One is the hour for which their carriage 
was ordered at the Palazzo Orsini. Another ten minutes, 
and Mrs. Dormer may be here; cool, collected, vnscru'pii- 
Ions, thinks Joyce, with harsh, newly awakened bitterness, 
as to the nature of a coup d’etat^ so long as the coup prom- 
ises success, and lies conveniently near at hand. 

Joyce Dormer turns sick at the thought. She resolves, 
desperately, to start on foot, alone, in search of Tryan^s 
lodging in that unknown and distant Via Nono. Her 
hand has grasped the wall-rope; she is just nerving herself 
to brave the dusky abyss of staircase when the sound of 
wheels comes, with a rush, along the uneven lava pavement 
of the Strada della Croce. The wheels stop, the outer bell 
is pulled vigorously. There follows a brief silence — the 
portiere once more reluctantly shuffling oJff the coil of sleep; 
then the street door^s rusty hinges give a groan, and young 
Longmore, three steps at a time, runs up the stair. 

I have been successful. Miss Dormer — by a mingle- 
ment of bribes and threats have turned aside a vettura on 
its way to the Orsini ball. But you must not lose a mo- 
ment, Longmore adds breathlessly. The driver, as far 
as I can make out his Italian, declares that he will give me 
possession for half an hour at the longest. Are you 
ready? 

Ready — ay, long ago.^^ 

Joyce Dormer ^s answer is given promptly; but Joyce 
herself does not move. She clasps her hands, with a gest- 
ure of pained uncertainty, across her forehead. 

Something has been forgotten, Mr, Longmore. Some- 
thing that I ought to do is left undone. Wait for me a lit- 
tle moment, she exclaims. Let me try to collect my 
thoughts.''^ 

The waiting-woman upon this draws near, her step dig- 
nified, her face melting in the direction of humanit}^ 

Was there anything I could get for you, mahim? A 
Z^extra shawl, perhaps — an umbrella? Or — alas, poor 
Smart, making, according to her lights, a last clutch at 
the sacred ensigns of sham! — would you wish me to ac- 
company you and — and this gentleman?^’ 

For several seconds longer Joyce stands in the same atti- 


244 A BALLEOOM REPENT A XCE. 

tilde of stunned bewilderment. At length a look of relief 
passes across her ashen face. 

I have remembered. Go down quickly, Mr. Long- 
more. Take forcible j^ossession of the vetiura and wait for 
me. I shall be at the house door almost as soon as you 
are.'’^ 

She turns back, and for a minute or two searches in the 
darkened salon. Then such a fraction of a soul as Smart 
possesses is further shaken by a new experience. Her 
young mistress, the rich Mrs. Farintyre of the future, not 
content with going forth, poorly dressed, on a questionable 
errand of mercy at midnight, but must carry that shabby 
old fiddle of hers/’ in its shabbier case, between her arms! 
Even Longmore is conscious of a certain shock when Joyce 
comes down the stairs to him thus laden. He i-s seized by 
a sense of the incongruous — a sense which, to young read- 
ers of human motive, turns the j)athetic ever with such 
fatal ease to bathos! 

I see what duty was left undone. The ruling passion. 
Miss Dormer, strong in death. Nero played while Home 
burned. 

But Joyce is too merged in the reality of pain to be jeal- 
ous ov’er possible misinterpretation of her conduct. 

Have you foj-gotten that I am bound by a promise? 
Did I not tell you once, in Clareiis, from whom my violin 
came, and how? I have promised never to from 

Stradivarius while I live. Judge if I could be guilty of 
breaking my word to-night. 

They enter the vettura as she sj^eaks; disjointed expostu- 
lations still audible from Smart, who, lanij) in hand, is fol- 
lowing them down the staircase. Then the condidtore, 
with a shake of the reins, urges his drij^ping horses into a 
gallop, and away over the stones, the rattle of the wheels 
echoing weirdly along the narrow street, the fugitives start. 

Small margin, in truth, was there for irresolution or 
delay. As they rush round the .first corner with a. swing, 
the vettiira narrowly escapes collision with an English-look- 
ing, pseudo-jDrivate brougham, returning at decorous pace 
from the direction of the Palazzo Orsini. The light from 
a neighboring street-lamp dickers upon the near window of 
the brougham and dis23la3^s the figure of a lady seated inside 
in evening dress. Another instant, both conduttori having 
brought their horses to a stand-still, and Joyce recognizes 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


245 


her mother, calm, sweet, youthful-looking, in a white 
O2)era-cloak, and with the most bewitching, little rose-lined 
hood above her head. 

A silhouette of John Earintyre, with loweringv brow and 
set lip, is discernible in the shadow at Mrs. Dormer^ s side. 


CHAPTER XYI. 

ROGER TRYAN^S LODGING. 

A FEELING almost of ecstasy thrills through Joyce^s mis- 
erable heart. 

She is free, at least; has escaped that bondage; will never 
blush again for Earin tyre’s want of brain, never listen to 
his praises of Rosie Lascelles of the Ambiguity, be wounded 
by his pride of purse, humiliated by his gorgeous gifts. 
With the ready grasp of detail which is at once the crown 
and the curse of over-imaginative people, she falls to con- 
juring up each successive external item of the jiosition; 
})ictures the scene that, ere another quarter strikes, will be 
at its height in the salon of her mother’s apartment; listens 
to Smart as, ujDi’ight and rustling, that majestic personage 
answers under a cross-fire of questioning. ‘‘Gone! Yes, 
indeed, ma’am, notwithstanding all that she. Smart, could 
urge, in one of these hack carriages, with only a young 
gentleman for company. Simimoned to the bedside of a 
dear friend, sick unto death.” Upon this melodramatic 
part of the story the woman would be sure to dwell. “ And 
here are a packet and a letter Miss Dormer solemnly bade 
her deliver. In the Earl of Wendover’s service, ma’am, 
our chaplain used to say — ” 

Joyce sees his own discarded jewels in Earintyre’s big 
hands, shivers at his outburst of rage, watches the exjires- 
sion of Mrs. Dormer’s lips as, courteous, self-possessed 
(Joyce can never think of her mother otherwise than 
thus), she clothes the situation in such poor robes of plati- 
tude as come within reach. Eor ether there is neither place 
nor scope. Ether is a weapon of attack; belongs to a time 
when concession from strong antagonists may still be jiossi- 
ble. But, though one fall, it shall be with grace! The 
Earintyre money will still exist as a power in the world, 
notwithstanding a madcap daughter’s rejection of it. Let 
us part from the owner of money with a dewy eyelash, with 


246 


A BALLKOOM KEPEJ!^TA1^’CE. 


murmured hopes of meeting under happier auspices — if 
Mr. Farintyre can show fine spirit, generosity enough, to 
accept one, still, as an acquaintance? 

What, according to doll moralities, is the fate of wedding 
presents when weddings are broken off? Joyce asks her- 
self this as the carriage rushes on through the pitchy night, 
amidst increasing wind and rain. To what mysterious 
limbo will go the smelling-bottles, Dresden plates, travel- 
ing-clocks, fans, laces, brackets, Japanese monsters, Shake- 
speares, and church services that have been so lavishly 
poured in since the day when Mrs. Dormer officially an- 
nounced that her daughter was to marry the rich Mr. Far- 
inl " 



food, costlier raiment go not, with intention, to 


the bottom of the sea, though hearts be shipwrecked. 
Who eventually will eat the London wedding-cake, and 
wear the Paris wedding-dress? Who will countermand 
the bouquets, the carriages, the guests, the officiating 
clerks, and make Mr. Dormer happy by telling him he 
may rest quiet among his tea-pots in Naples? Who will 
give the lady Vmaid warning — for her mother and herself 
must, perforce, resume their old habits of ;nomadism, need 
an abigail less than ever, after the fruitless expenditure of 
the last few weeks — who will give the lofty Smart warning, 
and in what terms? 

She wonders, without pain, almost as one might idly 
speculate on the concerns of some indifferent person, if she 
will live to see John Farintyre in the years to come: see 
him, perhaps, when she is an elderly faded woman, no par- 
ticular hope distinguishing one of her colorless days from 
another, and he sltall have grown into a senior partner, 
bald, prosperous, with wife and children, a seat in the 
House of Commons, an authoritative voice, and gout! 

Should she die, happier contingency, now, when she has 
taken her last watch beside Eoger Tryan, she knows the 
very spot on the cypress-covered slope of the Campo Santo 
where she would like to lie. A spot not so far from the 
violets of Keats^s grave but that the Pyramid of Cestus, at 
a certain hour of the day, overshadows it. Would they 
bury her, here in Pome, at Tryan^s side, or part her from 
him in death as in life? Part her from him, doubtless; 
recall with a sigh how, poor dear girl, she was never really 
strong; talk about thin shoes — imprudence — a chill result- 


A BALLROOM EEPEN^TAKCE. 


24.7 


ing from the maddest ball-room freak — erecfc a marble 
falsehood, neatly, above her head, in some English ceme- 
tery, and forget her. Six months hence Mrs. Dormer will 
be wearing slighter mourning; other hands, obedient jDcr- 
haps, to the impulse of some young and happy heart, shall 
woo soft delight from the strings of Stradivarius, and — 

And the vettura pulls up short, midway along its course 
'down a steep and narrow lane. Joyce is forced to remem- 
ber that she is livmgy must drink her cup to the dregs ere 
vision so sweet as this of lying under violeted sod be in- 
dulged in. 

^°Via Nono, seventy- three repeats Longmore, looking 
skeptically forth into the darkness as he opens the carriage 
door. Whether our guide has played us false, whether 
this be the Via Nono or not, I am afraid. Miss Dormer, 
you have no choice but to brave the weather. It was part 
of the bargain that we should keep the vettura for one 
course only, and that the driver should not wait a second. 
Let me get out, first — search, at least, for shelter.'’^ 

Shelter, however, is not forthcoming. In blackest ob- 
scurity, the rain beating fiercely in her face, Joyce finds 
herself once more on rough, wet pavement, young Long- 
more and the driver trying to outshout the wind (must not 
men be paid, must not men resent overcharge, though one 
at hand lie dying?) as they settle how many lire shall be 
paid for the half hour^s drive. With the departure of the 
vettura the position seems to grow forlorner. Joyce is 
familiar with all the main Eoman thoroughfares, arid, as 
her eyes gradually grow used to the darkness, she can dis- 
tinguish one or two landmarks of the neighboring Monte 
Giordano. But how feel sure that this is the Via E’onor 
How make out poor Tryan^s lodging amidst the rows of 
towering, unlighted houses which stretch out in vague per- 
spective on either side? 

‘^Via Nono, seventy- three. ^ Ho lottery-ticket-holder, 
breathlessly waiting to hear liis number called, could ex- 
2 Derience heaH-beats more poignant than does Joyce as, 
clinging to Longmore '’s arm, she decip)hers number after 
number on the crumbling, weather-beaten lintels above the 
doors! At length, the girEs limbs failing her for very 
weariness, further search all but given up in despair, 7Z,’^ 
roughly chalked upon a ground-floor shutter, catches her 
sight. The house to which this shutter belongs is a ruin- 


248 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAISTCE. 


Oils, many-storied building, upon the first fioor of which 
one solitary window gives sign of human presence. The 
rickety outer portable stands ajar. An oil-lamp, burning 
beneath a Madonna on the ojDposite side of the street, feebly 
illuminates the entrance. When the portone is pushed 
open, the balustrade of a staircase can be guessed at, rather 
than distinguished, through the gloom. 

Here we part, then,^'’ whispers Joyce, Hugh Longmore 
having given a muffied ring at the house-bell. I am safe 
in shelter, and you — ah, Mr. Longmore,'^ ^ she breaks off 
with quick remorse, it is the old story still. I have be- 
haved selfishly throughout the whole of our acquaintance. 
I am selfish, thinking only of myself to the end. 

‘^ Thinking only of yourself. Miss Dormer?^ ^ 

Their hand^s have met, exchange the pressure of a silent 
farewell. Hugh Longmore strains his eyes to catch a last 
impression of the face whose haunting fairness, during all 
these months, has been his paradise and his torment. 

Yes, thinking of my own trouble, forgetting that you 
were wet to the skin and would be stranded, without guide 
or conveyance, among these deserted Eoman lanes. But 
for helping me to find the number you might have returned 
to your hotel in the carriage, might have been spared the 
misery of another soaking. 

The water, of a truth, runs in streams down the young 
Oxonian^s drenched evening suit. 

When one is wet, one is wet,^^ he remarks laconically. 

Fate seems to have decreed that whenever you and I, 
Miss Dormer, are thrown into each other ^s society we 
should come to grief — 

In the matter of weather, not in other things,’^ Joyce 
interrupts him, with emphasis. 

Hugh Longmore dares not trust himself sufficiently to 
answer her. 

I, of course, have come to the last grief of all. Every 
hope of my life is over — only one frail plank still left to 
founder, and then — absolute shipwreck. 

Many a frail plank has ridden out storm and tempest 
before this.^^ 

Longmore^s voice betrays him, although the tenor of his 
words is reassuring. 

Not such a storm as this,^^ Joyce answers tremblingly. 

You, however, need not be bracketed with me in mis- 


A BALLROOM REPEKTANCl]. 24:9 

fortune. When you go from Rome I hope all troublous 
thoughts will be left behind you, buried here. 

When I go from Rome I shall carry away — not hope/^ 
exclaims Longmore passionately; but a higher ideal than 
I ever had! In the last two hours I have regained more 
than I had lost. It is not a time, I know,^^ he adds, to 
sj^eak of personal feelings — of keenest regret, bitterest dis- 
apjDointment. I am a spectator at a drama that moves me 
utterly, but a spectator, only. 

And you will not be the worse — as time goes on, you 
will not feel less interest in your life, less pleasure in your 
work, for having known me? So much, before we 23art, I 
should like to hear you say. 

Frankly the poor girl j^resses his hand, frankly upholds 
her white, agitated face to his. But Longmore misunder- 
stands Joyce Dormer, suspects her of coquetry, no more. 

The solution of the problem, the interpretation of a 
woman ^s heart, have, tardily, dawned upon him! 

I shall be better, richer, until I die, for having loved 
you, he whispers, his pent-up secret wrung from him in 
the moments strong emotion. Every past hour that I 
have spent with you has been pure gain, gold without a 
mixture of dross! And as for the future — 

In a moment Joyce has gone back to the remembrance of 
Tryan, the horror of her own overshadowing dread. 

Do not let us talk like this. There is no future for 
me,^^ she exclaims wildly. If a brighter day ever dawns 
for Roger Tryan I wdll write. Rest assured I shall keep 
my word this time! Then I will thank you as I can not do 
now for your generous help to both of us. Mr. Longmore 
— good-bye. 

Even as she sjieaks the word, a mysterious little door 
ojiens in the further corner of the entrance yard. A min- 
ute later, a nondescriiit slijipered figure, lamp in hand, has 
made its way through the darkness, and in the soft patois 
of the Roman jDeasant jieople, announces itself as the 
Here of the establishment. 

‘^An higlese!^^ This is in answer to Joyce DormeFs 
flurried, barely intelligible questions. Yes, an Inglese 
moriente lies — worse fortune to the house — on the first floor. . 
Alii, ahi. It is a case of bad fever, lasci die yo Je dica. 
Best leave the povero to the saints and to the Bxiona Sorella 
who nurses liini. l!say, then, if the signorina choose, she 


250 


A BALLKOOM KEPEKTAKCE. 


shall have the sick man^s door pointed out to her. Ahi, 
ahi. These Protestant Inglese mind neither death nor 
'heaven. 

For a second longer Joyce^s ice-cold hand presses Long- 
morels, her breath lingers, as once it did, among the lonely 
mountains, in the placid summer moonlight, on his cheek. 
Then a girlish, black-clad figure flits across the court-yard's 
floor, the sound of a light footstejD dies away, is lost among 
the echoes of the staircase. The vividest chapter of Hugh 
Longmore^s life is closed with a clasp. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

DEAD VIOLETS. 

A TRAGIC imornamented fact, brought abruptly face to 
face with one^s own conscience. Refined reader, do you 
know the moral shock engendered by such a process? 

Joyce Dormer, during her twenty-one years, has, by virt- 
ue of the artistic temperament, lived much; has thought, 
has felt more than the average of young women; has loved, 
has suffered. And still, thoughts, feelings, sufferings, 
have, perforce, been trivialized by a certain influence. 
Serious, persistent frivolity, sweet, smiling disbelief like 
Mrs. Dormer^s, tend to lay young enthusiasm in the dust 
quite as effectually, I suspect, as did the orthodox method 
of preaching down a daughter's heart, in vogue, thirty 
years ago. 

When the door of Tryan^s sick-room opens, when the 
portress, invoking all calendared saints, collectively, has 
crossed herself, and fled down the stairs, Joyce Dormer 
stands alone. Alone, unpropped by chaperon or conven- 
tion, in the presence of truth, the issues of life or of death 
marshaled in sternest array before her eyes. Alone with 
the man whose happiness pretty little feminine aspirations 
and caprices ruined long ago, and who, racked by fever and 
weakness, calls now upon the name of Xessie Pinto, now 
upon her own, in the plain, unanswerable sincerity of de- 
lirium. 

In this moment Joyce Dormer becomes a woman, for- 
sakes the Doll tribe with its low ambitions, its cold desires, 
its easy sliding scale of cheap moralities, for evermore. 

The room where Tryan lies is bare and moldering. The 


A BALLROOM REPENTAIsCE. 


251 


windows, in accordance with Roman ideas of nursing, are 
fast closed. Medicine bottles, mixed up with the remains 
of an Italian supper — id est, oil, fish-bones and garlic — 
stand on a table, not a couple of yards distant from the sick 
man^s pillow. 

In an opposite corner of the room, bolt upright, sits an 
aged sister of the Bon Secours. A rosary, half told, is 
slipping from between her thin brown fingers. Her head 
is supported by the wall, her mouth is open. The sister of 
the Bon Secours sleej)s, audibly. 

DelV acqua ! Datemi deW acqua,^’ moans poor Tryan, 
in hoarse, broken Italian. ‘‘ Why, Pinto, I say, whereas 
Isessie — where’s your wife? Can’t she give up Monte Carlo 
for one night? Send a servant, then — don’t leave me to 
die of thirst aloiie. Water — one of you — for the love of 
Heaven — water !” 

Hastily laying aside her hat and cloak, Joyce crosses to 
the bed and takes her place by Roger Tryan. A jug of 
water stands on a table close at hand. She pours some into 
a cup, and supjDorting the sick man’s head with her arm — 
the arm that was to have been Roger’s rightful pillow two 
years ago — raises it to his lips. 

He drinks, in short, greedy gulps; then, as he is in the 
act of swallowing, falls back heavily. His staring, over- 
bright eyes meet Joyce’s very full. 

‘MVho are you — what are you doing here?” he cries. 

Hessie, I say, Kessie Pinto, send this German girl away. 
She has come here to poison me, send her away! I want,” 
his voice changing almost to a moan, I want to see Joyce 
Dormer before I die. Oh, I understand — ^you are afraid 
to let her come! Jealousy, this wretched jealousy to the 
last. My poor little darling — with her pure face — and her 
eyes. Shall I never again see her eyes, this side of the 
grave?” 

She is here, Roger; she is waiting for you to forgive 
her.” 

Don’t you know that Krilofi has the deal? Rien ne 
va phis, Le jeu est fait — rouge gagne^ et couleur. The 
same bad luck as ever — Ko good, you say, madame, in 
pulling up. Then double the stakes —folio w out your sys- 
tem. As well be ruined in one night as take a year about 
it. ” * 

He stops, and looks round him, wildly. Joyce shrinks 


252 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


not for a moment. Her pitying clasp does but hold him 
closer. 

Whose arm is this?^^ he rambles on, presently. 

Whose face is hanging over me here in this miserable 
place? — Take her away — quick! I won’t have the German 
woman near me. Mrs. Pinto, you have been my friend 
through thick and thin, truer — you are right in that — than 
a hundred Joyce Dormers.” 

A shudder of pain runs through the slight frame that 
upholds him, 

Bufc I loved her, fickle though she was — and now— that 
I am dying-^you keep her from me. Give me water 
He cries this with piteous impatience, and clutching the 
bed-clothes between his pale hands. For the sake of 
Heaven, water!” 

Again Joyce lifts the .cujD to Eoger Tryan’s lips, her arm 
supporting his head. Again his eyes rest, this time with 
something more of reasonable recognition in their gaze, 
upon her face. 

Are you the girl I used to go about with at Cowes?” he 
asks, catching such firm hold of her wrist that, for a second, 
Joyce Dormer’s courage well-nigh fails her. AVhere is 
your husband? What are you doing, here, in my room?” 

I am Joyce,” she answers, bending over him tenderly. 

I have no husband, Eoger. I love no one in the world 
but - you. You are very ill. You are away from all your 
friends, and I — have come here to your lodging to nurse 
you. ” 

At the sound of her voice Eoger Tryan for a moment or 
two looks bewildered; the wildness in his eyes softens. 
Then, bursting into a loud, jarring laugh, he loosens his 
hold upon her. 

Ho husband! You will say next, no lover. A pretty 
story to tell me after all that is past and gone. Why, there 
was Sir Kenneth Grant — old enough to be my poor dar- 
ling’s father, but approved by Mrs. Dormer for all that! 
And now there is this fellow with the big fortune. I saw 
them together on the Pincian, in the J3orghese gardens, at 
the Sistine Chapel. What do they call liim? Tell me 
quick — don’t torture me — the man out of the city — their 
marriage is fixed for Saturday — ^you know him as well as I 
do!” 


A BALLHOOM REPEXTAXCE. 


253 


Sick and trembling, Joyce brings her lips to speak John 
Farintyre^s name. 

Farintyre, thaFs ifc! ^ A fellow almost damned in a 
fair wife. ^ There they are — standing together in the crowd. 
Let the priests put out their taj^ej's and chant their j)salms. 
Miserere — miserere — such a marriage cries aloud for pity, 
both from God and man. Do you see her there, I say — 
Joyce Dormer, at Fariiityre'^s side, smiling 

‘‘Joyce Dormer will never smile again in this world, 
says the girl, as he seems to pause for her answer. 

“ She does not know I am watching. She thinks me 
safe, a dying man, away there in Nice. Dead men tell no 
tales, my poor child, do they? Troublesome, you see, for. 
a married woman to come across an old lover, an out-at- 
elbows spendthrift like Eoger Tryan. And Joyce is pru- 
dent, there you show judgment, Mrs. Pinto, prudent — a 
heart of ice — 

“ No, Eoger! She loves you. We will put the j^ast 
away, and ho23e for good days yet. Joyce Dormer loves 

youJ' . 

“ Prudent, like her mother, knows the market value of 
things — Why, when the Frenchman had winged me, never 
to call, never to write me a single word — The cuiarrel 
was not about her,^^ he breaks off confusedly; Joyce 
Dormer ^s name shall not be mixed up in a paltry card dis- 
]Dute— See, your luck again, madame! Tout va aux 
billets,. Uor va a la masse, Rien ne va plus. Oh, 
heavens, stop it all — turn off this gas, and give me air. I 
suffocate. 

Joyce Dormer crosses the room; without awakening the 
fast-slumbering nurse, she opens a chink of window, then 
softly gets back to her place beside Tryan’s pillow. 

“ That is right, moans the poor fellow, as a breath of 
fresher air crosses his face. We are better off here, 
Joyce, among the orange-trees than hanging over that 
wretched green cloth, are we not? Dix-Uuit coups de tiers 
et tout, et une serie de cinq. If your wife goes on like this, 
Pinto, we shall be ruined, both of us. No man’s purse 
would last out such jDlay. Make her wait for a new dealer 
— or ask some one else to stake. Ask Joyce Dormer? No, 

I say, no. She shall never put down a napoleon. It is not 
a place for the girl. What brought her to Monte Carlo at 
all — ^at Zecca’s side, too! A thousand pardons. Monsieur 


254 


A BALLKOOM REPEXTAis^CE. 


le Comte, but — well, then, monsieur, if your friend insists 
on taking things seriously, it was meant as a hint, an alfront 
if you like the word better, and Til abide the conse- 
quences — Wounded? Oh, a scratch, a flesh wound, only. 
Bid Gervais see me home — Keep the thing out of the 
papers if you can, and tell the Frenchman to run. Fve 
done a good bit of work, Pinto, though you would not stand 
by me — cleared Monte Carlo of that scoundrel. 

So, incoherently, Tryan^s mind wanders; recollections of 
light and darkness, of orange-scented gardens and croupiers^ 
cries, of Joyce Dormer and of his own quarrel with Zecca, 
poured forth together in loud and ever-heightening de- 
lirium. At length, worn out, he falls into a broken, 
troubled sleep, and Joyce is free to move, faint of S23irit, 
yet upheld by the feeling of infinite bodily strength that 
the weakest of us, in such dread hours, have experienced. 

Quitting her place beside the bed, she apjDlies herself to 
the needed task of making the sick-room neat. The girl 
has an inborn faculty for nursing; a gift, I have remarked, 
not unfrequent in women who are also born artists. Her 
step and her touch are quiet, her dress is unrustling, her 
sense of hearing keen, her nerve steady. She bears away 
the sister^s garlic-haunted su23|:)er-dishes into an adjoining 
chamber, and skillfully adjusts the opening of windows in 
such a fashion that air, without draught, shall vitalize the 
patienPs oxygen-craving blood. Then, noiselessly and 
swift, she sets herself to arranging the chaos of minor dis- 
order that a week^s Italian sick-nursing has sufficed to bring 
about — medicine vials, glasses, S230ons, carafes, crowded in 
unlovely array upon the time-blackened ledge that serves 
for mantel-shelf, cupboard, and dressing-table above the 
fire-place. 

In doing this, it chances that Joyce comes across a small 
hea23 of Eoger Try an ^s personal belongings, laid away, 
doubtless, by the honest sister on her first arrival in the 
lodging. His watch and chain are here, together with the 
locket that once held a bit of his betrothed ^s hair, a pair of 
sleeve-links — his real or 23iayfully feigned attachment to 
which used many a time to arouse Joyce ""s jealousy — a 
signet-ring, a bunch of long-dead violets. 

Dare she guess as to the color of the hair that lies in- 
closed, now, witliin that locket? Dare she wonder of 'whom 
these violets are a remembrance? 


A BALLROOM REPENTAWE. 


266 


Alas, wliat matters it! So answers her chill and sink- 
ing heart. Of what account are falsehood or fidelity to 
one who nears the goal whither Tryan is hastening, who 
treads the dark road where no human love can bear us 
com pail}", no human coldness harm us more! 

Dead violets. With an impulse of repentant tenderness, 
Joyce lifts them to her mouth. She cares not for whose 
sake Tryan first valued them. Enough, that they have 
been his! With muffled tread she moves a step or two 
closer to the night-lamp, and examines the little bunch of 
dried stalks and sapless petals more nearly. 

They are the violets she drojDped on the terrace at Monte 
Carlo; are tied together by a shred of crimson filoselle, 

Roger Tryan^s sleep lasts for the best part of an hour. 
AVhen he awakens it is with somewhat quieted nerves, with 
a look of freshened consciousness on his features. 

Water, give me water !^^ Does a fever patient ever 
wake with any other cry? DeW acqua, bno7ia Sorelli, 
datemi deW accqtia, 

The biiona Sorella sleeps, professionally calm, through 
everything. But Joyce, on the instant, is at his pillow; 
she raises Roger ^s head; with gentle strength supporting 
his weight, she gives him water to drink as before. He 
looks at her, when she has laid him back on his pillow, with 
a face, sunken though it be, that is like the beloved face 
she remembers, with eyes no longer unknowing. 

I dreamed that you were here, Joyce. Your mother 
and Mr. Farintyre could not keep you away, my dear, could 
they?^^ 

ISTo one could have kept me away,^^ she falters. I 
heard first of your illness at a ball, to-night, from Hugh 
Longmore. In a moment I felt that 1 might be of help to 
you, and I came.^^ 

‘‘ You did not come very quick in Nice after my misad- 
venture with the Frenchman.''^ 

I never knew of your danger. The whole story was 
cfuelly hidden from me. Do you think, she cries, after 
what was said between us that night at Monte Carlo, after 
I had asked you to call on my mother next day, that I 
should break faith with you again 

It was a near thing — did Longmore tell you? Monsieur 
Zecca^s bullet went considerably nearer one^s lungs than 


256 A BALLEOOM EEPEISTTAis'CE. 

the surgeons liked. However^ we won^'t talk of past mis- 
fortune now. Things are looking u]^ for me/^ a wan smile 
breaking oyer his face^ as he speaks^ for I have got you! 
How long are you going to stay with me^, Joyce?’^ 

As long as you will have me/^ she answers; then sinks 
upon her knees at his side. I will never leave you more^ 
dear Eoger, unless you wish it.^^ 

Eoger stretches out his arm around her shoulder^ draw- 
ing her toward liim, with such poor strength as he still 
possesses. 

Of course. I know what that means. Farintyi'e gen- 
erously sjDares you for a little time because I am going to 
die. I overhear more than they think — the end ap23roaches. 
The old English doctor who visits me said as much to-day 
to the Sorella,^^ 

A cry of exceeding bitterness breaks from Joyce Dor- 
mer^s convulsed lij^s. 

Oh, my dear, live for me! I have loved you always — 
yes, when the world, when you, Eoger, must have thought 
me falsest. Only I was a coward, I did not dare stand up 
against Lady Joan and against my mother. But I have 
loved you always. I have never forgotten you for an 
hour. 

And you doiiH mean to marry Farintyre? Mrs. Dor- 
mer will consent, after all, to your accejDting poverty.^ 
Nay, we will leave doubtful subjects alone. \Ve will talk 
only of ourselves. Do you remember the first night I saw 
you. Miss Dormer, at the opera.^ Minnie Hank was inlay- 
ing ^ Carmen. The bull-fighter had just sung his song. 
And I looked round from my stall, and saw your yellow 
locks close above me in one of the boxes. 

‘^And at the end of the act you came in with Mr. 
Armitage to be introduced to us. A^ou did not leave our 
box for the remainder of the evening, Eoger. 

And as I took you to the carriage you gave me a list 
of your coming balls, you promised me dances for them all. 
Well, well, Tis over now, operas, balls, everything — but 
the time that followed was the best time of my life.'’^ 

And of mine,^^ adds Joyce humbly. I remember 
each of those dances as if it had taken place yesterday. I 
keejn my jnrogrammes still. I read your name, written on 
them from end to end. 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAKOE. 267 

You gave me dances, but I had plenty of rivals, all the 
same/^ 

How cheerfully they talk — cheerfully, though with every 
stroke of the clock, Eoger Tryan^s, strength ebbs, and 
Joyce^s miserable heart comes nigher to breaking. 

‘‘You took care I should not be too sure of my fate until 
the hour came. Ho you remember that hour, Joyce?^^ 

“ Eemember!^^ 

Arid at the thought a glow of warm and passionate life 
overcomes the pallor of J(^ce Dormer ^s face. 

“ It was in Eichmond Dark. We were taking an after- 
dinner walk, and had the misfortune, somehow, to lose Mrs. 
Dormer and the others! You were bent, you said, on find- 
ing white fox-gloves that evening, so we were forced to go- 
deep away among the woods. The sun was setting, and — 
did I, or did I not, really make you a declaration, Joyce?^^ 
“ You always said not,'^'^ she answers, resting her soft 
hand on his forehead. “And so, Eoger, as we certainly 
were engaged when we drove back to town, I suppose the 
declaration must have come from me.^^ 

“ My poor little sweetheart! It was a bad evening^s work 
for you, any way. You might have married some richer 
fellow even than Farintyre but for that Eichmond dinner. V 
“ Thank God I have married no one,^^ is Joyce ^s firm 
answer. “ Thank God I am free to kneel at your side, to 
hold your hand, as I do now. 

“ Free to watch by me till death us do part,^^ says 
Eoger, but with his utterance once more growing indis- 
tinct. “ There is something like that in the marriage 
service, is there not?^^ 

“ Till death us do part. 

Joyce Dormer^ s lips can frame no answer save the husky 
repetition of his words. 

“ Well, then, although we have had no priest’s bless- 
ing, you will stay with me — until all this dream is over. 
For I a?u dreaming.” And he shrinks from her, the rest- 
less fire of delirium again lighting up his eyes. “ Faites 
votre jeu. Messieurs, le jeu est fait, Rien ne va plus! 
Why Is it so dark? Are they turning ofi the gas already? 
It was not dark like this at Monte Carlo. ” 

“You are in Eome, quietly alone with me, Eoger. Let 
us never speak or think of Monte Carlo more. 

“ There’s Nessie Pinto at the foot of the bed, in black — 

9 


258 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAI^CE. 


a small bit of hypocrisy, madame, that black gown of yours 
— ISTessie Pinto and her husband. What! You have 
brought my check-book, Pinto, all the way to Eome? You 
have not forgotten that, though you forgot to stand by me 
the other day. You want a trifling loan — the old story — 
my signature, merely, for another hundred?' Then make 
your wife take an oath — Nessie^s oaths — to give up play. 

- Rovge gagne et couleur. Lost, again. DonT you see the 
Eussian croupier dealing? When did you ever have luck 
in one of Krilofl^s deals ?’^ 

So, through the lagging night hours, Tryan rambles 
darkly on. At length, just when the crystal-clear light of 
Eoman dawn is breaking, sleeps falls upon him. After a 
brief interval he opens his eyes, and, very quietly, calls 
Joyce by name. 

I am here, she answers, bending over him instantly. 

Are you suffering? Is there an3dhing I can do for you ?^^ 
Kiss me, my poor little girl. Let me feel your lips 
once again this side of the grave. 

And Joyce obeys him. 


CHAPTEE XVIIL 

STRADIVARIUS. 

Easter, this year, has fallen unusually late. The 
southern summer draws on with rapid, flower-strewn steps. 
By each express that leaves the Eternal City the English- 
speaking Eoman colony disperses to the winds. 

The month of May is the fairest, possibly the whole- 
somest, season of the Eoman calendar. We Britons must 
fly north or south, nevertheless. Did not somebody, long 
ago, decree that English persons of fashion must never 
spend their Mays in Eome? When nightingales sing and 
roses blow, and the Eomans begin to eat delicious little 
ices and take siestas in the shade, is it not imperative upon 
every unit in the great army of Nobodies to pack up his 
portmanteau, pay his hotel bill, and fly? 

Out of the crowd of persons who elbowed each other dur- 
ing the ceremonies of the Holy Week, scarce half a dozen, 
by the end of another fortnight, remain. John Earintyre, 
with brand-new valet, brand-new traveling-gear, and a 
great number of bracelets and necklaces upon his hands, 


A BALJ.ROOM KEPEKTAN^CE. 259 

started for London on the morrow of the Orsini ball. A 
not unauthentic whisper has floated Eonieward^ that 
bracelets^, necklaces and Mr. John Farintyre himself^ are 
already offered to the lawful acceptance of Eosie Lascelles 
of the Ambiguity. Hugh Longmore is keeping his last 
term in Oxford. Little Mrs. Dormer, with implacable 
resignation, has offered herself up to the world ^s view — a 
martyr! Little Mrs. Dormer, after some years ^ delay on 
the road, has at length overtaken her husband and his tea- 
pots at Naples. 

‘ ‘ My child ^s behavior under late trying circumstances 
was simply magnificent.-^^ This she tells her Naples 
friends, a tear, pellucid as truth, glistening on her eyelash. 

Joyce is a born nurse, at the call of pity would sacrifice 
even her own nearest interests. Under brighter circum- 
stances Mr. Tryan^s amiable qualities had endeared him to 
us. In the dark hour, when fair-weather friends all fled, 
my daughter nobly risked her life to tend him. Joyce’s 
conduct has been magnificent. I, alas! have felt my heart 
torn asunder by conflicting duties. Personal fear one, of 
course, has none. A nervous invalid like my dear Mr. 
Dormer must be guarded from the possibility of contagion. 
And so, for awhile, her nursing cares fortunately brought 
to an* end by the patient’s convalescence, Joyce must resign 
herself to lingering on in Eome in quarantine.” 

Will you visit her in this quarantine,” reader, see in 
what haven Joyce Dormer’s ovenvrought heart and brain 
have found rest? 

You must ascend a narrow road close beside the Arch of 
Titus if you would do so, ring at a convent door above 
wliich Bokum Est Nos Hio Esse is graven in moldering 
capitals, and deliver your message, show your credentials 
to a somber-robed, cheerful-faced portress, one of the lay 
members of the sisterhood, who will appear behind the 
barred grille in answer to your ring. 

Here, among a community of the Little Sisters of the 
Poor, on a site which in Eome of old was the garden of 
Adonis, Joyce Dormer has sought and found refuge. In 
her first outburst of passionate repentance, of just indigna- 
tion, all that the girl could realize was — that she had been 
deceived; that Eoger Tryan, helpless, forsaken, needed her 
succor! On the night of the Orsini ball she went to his 


200 "A BALLROOM REPENTANCE, 

sick pillow as a daughter would go to a dying father, a sis- 
ter to a brother. She took her place, day and night, be- 
side ihe nurses, quitted him not in his extremest need, 
ministered to him, divinely patient, throughout his slow, 
ofttimes doubtful, return to convalescence. 

Only when convalescence had fairly set in, on a certain 
morning when the doctor, drawing her aside, remarked 
triumphantly that their patient wa» returning to Ufey did 
Joyce realize what thing it was that she had done. Over 
shattered doll moralities she mourned not. But Eoger 
himself — Agony lay in the thought that her imprudence 
might lower her in his sight, for whom she would have 
counted the world and the world ^s opinion well lost. And 
in a paroxysm of new-born shame, with burning cheek and 
stammering tongue, she besought the kindly English doc- 
tor to be her guide. Mrs. Dormer, drawn, as we have seen, 
by the cords of wifely duty, was at this very moment pre- 
paring to start for iSTaples. Lawful protector in Eome, 
Joyce, on her mother ^s departure, would have none. And 
yet to Eome, as long as Eoger remained there an invalid, 
she found herself bound. 

Mr. Tryan might have a relapse.. It was well for her 
to be at hand in case the nurses of the Bon Secours should 
need her help. But she would like to go away — to-day — 
this morning — from Mr. Tryan ^s lodging. Her strength 
was shaken a little, perhaps, through loss of sleep. Or it 
might be that this early summer weather tired one^s 
northern nerves. It would be good for her to move to a 
different part of Eome; good to rest. If Dr. Byrne could 
only advise her as to a fitting resting-place?^’ 

As the poor girl asked this, faltering, blushing, it scarce- 
ly needed forty years’ professional experience to arrive at a 
diagnosis of her case. Gravely resting his fingers on 
Joyce’s wrist, the good old doctor pronounced a change of 
air to be an instant necessity; two hours later — a plaintively 
written consent wrung, meanwhile, from Mrs. Dormer — 
drove with her himself to the door of the Little Sisters of 
the Poor. Sisters in very truth, gentle souls, whom no 
Eoman heats can drive from their cloisters and their 
prayers; simple women, ready ever to offer sanctuary to 
the lonely or the sorrow-stricken, to the poor of spirit as to 
the poor of purse ! 

From that day on, Joyce Dormer’s health of mind has 


A BALLROOM REPEl^TAKCE. * 2(ji 

made steady progress. Exactly the profound quiet that 
we need after seasons of large joy or grief the sleepy daily 
round of this convent life has 3delded her. She is as truly 
making a retreat as though orthodox confessor listened 
to her searchings of conscience, and saintly director guided 
her hours. 

How if she had grown enamored in earnest of gray con- 
vent walls, if, taking example by the sisters, she had 
weaned herself from all old desire of mundane achieve- 
ment? What chance had there been for ,a soul like hers in 
an existence as void of human ambition as of human Iqve? 

Resting within the pergola — a rose-embroidered, orange- 
shaded pathway of the convent garden — Joyce ponders 
closely over these questions, one dreamy noontide. A 
cloistered life, she bethinks her, could not be such a very 
bad lot, here in Rome, with the memories, the poetry, of 
all the ages around, a tapestry of sun-kissed flowers cloth- 
ing the^ walls of one^s prison-house, and the ever-young 
Italian sky above. Not a bad kind of moral suicide, if no 
voice in far-away England called to one, if no vacant chair, 
beside an English hearth, were the price of one^s euthanasia! 

Even as she muses thus, her thoughts become dramatized, 
unconsciously. A Song without Words is ready to 
break from Joyce "^s heart. In fancy she can see some 
pallid English sister, standing amidst the mingled orange 
blooms and cypress shades of the convent garden. A rosary 
is between the sister^s thin hands, a mechanical prayer on 
her rigid lips, and in her breast — yearnings for warm 
household love that she shall never taste, of duties, sweet, 
trebly sweet in their daily commonness, which she has 
forfeited forever. 

If Stradivarius were only at hand, how naturally the 
pathetic story would set itself to music! Joyce rises from 
her seat. Wistfully gazing across strong walls and iron- 
barred gates, she thinks of her violin lying disused, in its 
case, in Roger Tryan^’s lodging. In imagination her An- 
gers know the delightful familiar sensation of polished bow 
and vibrating strings. She hears Roger^s voice while, 
half tenderly, half jesting, as in the days long dead, he 
criticises her improvisation. As she stands thus, her cheeks 
a little pale, her eyes suffused under the influence of 
thought that bids fair to become emotion, a sohd footstep 
crunches along Jhe path that leads from the convent build- 


262 


A BALLROOM KEPEJS TA]l!^CE. 


ings to the pergola, a black-robed figure approaches — ^no 
pining, passionate Heloise, but good, thirteen-stone Moni- 
ca, the portress, contentment and good cheer writ large on 
every feature of her handsome old Koman face. 

Another few seconds, and a slip of folded paper is in 
Joyce’s hand. 

Doctor Byrne and a friend would be glad of ten min- 
utes’ conversation with Miss Dormer in the convent par- 
lor.” 

Her past fortnight among the Little Sisters has been one 
of unalloyed good to Joyce; a calm breathing-space upon 
which, from out the wear and tear of fuller-colored life, it 
may well be that she shall look back, hereafter, with a feel- 
ing of regret. None the less does she obey Dr. Byrne’s 
summons with over-ready steps, with a flush of most mun- 
dane tell-tale expectation on her face. Through dim 
orange-scented pergola, through noontide blazing sun, she 
flies to the quadrangle, a marble-paved space, where at this 
moment the sisters, two and two, pace slowly under 
shadow of the cloisters. She traverses the long cool con- 
vent passages; she reaches the threshold of the parlor. 
Then, pausing for a second to get back her breath, Joyce 
pushes back the half-opened door, hastily, and discovers 
Eoger Tryan, alone. 

I — I beg your pardon — I thought Doctor Byrne was 
here. ” 

So she falters, growing guiltily red, and stopping short 
on the entrance. 

Doctor Byrne has gone on to visit a patient in the next 
street,” says Eoger, coming forward to meet her. He 
has promised me ten minutes’ grace — ten minutes. Miss 
Dormer, to say all that has still to be said between you and 
me! Why have you not been to see me for so long?” 

Eoger has, by this time, shut the door; and Joyce makes 
her escape into the remotest window of the room, an iron- 
barred window, festooned by trailing vine branches, and 
with an outlook through vistas of Judas- trees in bloom, to- 
• ward a delicately purple sweep of Alban hills. 

Garden and hills and blossoming trees are at rest. The 
whole world, it would appear, save one caged canary sing- 
ing far away in the refectory, is purposely silent. The 
whitewashed walls seem prepared to listen. A row of 
water-color sisters send down cold glances of admonition 


A BALLROOM REPEKTAMCE. 2 ( j 3 

from their . black bead frames overhead. The motionless 
repose of Southern midday is upon all things. 

Joyce Dormer ^s color varies; her heart throbs loud and 
fast. 

I knew you were making good progress, Mr. Tryan. 
If there was any relapse Doctor Byrne and the huona 
Sorella promised to send for me. That was a settled thing 
when I left your lodging. 

How long is it since you left — months, years? I used 
to think being ill was slow work,^^ says the poor fellow, 
whose face still wears the pinched and sunken look of re- 
cent fever. But I have learned, since you gave me up, 
that there can be one thing in a man^s life slower still — 
convalescence. 

‘ Gave you up!^ You gave me up after the best of all 
fashions, Mr. Tryan — by recovering. I stayed as long as 
the doctor ordered, as long as it was possible you could 
want me. 

You think so. And suppose J had wanted you to stay 
forever ?^^ 

The question is a crucial one. Joyce Dormer buries her 
face amidst the tangle of warm leaves that frames the 
window. 

Are not the sisters fortunate in their garden? Were 
such delicious roses ever seen?^^ she remarks irrelevantly. 

And look at the deep shade of our ^pergola. I donT for 
my part see, with such a garden as this, why one could not 
remain in Eome right through the summer. 

And be buried, under the cypress, yonder, with the first 
autumn rains. I perceive. Miss Dormer, says Tryan, 

that the Little Sisters of the Poor are getting hold of you. 
You are beginning to hanker after a convent life. Doctor 
Byrne hinted at such a likelihood as we drove along. The 
sisters are bent on making an English convert. 

The kind, simple sisters! I am afraid they know too 
well that I am of the world, worldly, to attempt my con- 
version. ^ ^ 

‘‘ And you have no leaning toward the embroidering of 
altar laces, the trimming of saints^ lamps — no intention of 
spending the remainder of your days - within four well- 
baiTed walls ?^^ 

Mr. Tryan is standing at the distance of about one foot 
and a half from Joyce as he asks this question. Ere she 


264 


A BALLROOM REPElSTTAlSrCE. 


answers, she lifts her blue eyes to his face; they peruse it 
tenderly, not without a secret dread. 

You do not return to strength as quickly as you ought, 
Boger. The hair is gone from your temples. Your cheeks 
are hollowed. Your whole face has that terrible gray shade 
of illness about it still. 

And you. Miss Dormer,^^ he answers, have got back 
your best looks. Your cheeks never bloomed so sweetly 
before, I think. Evidently, you are not wasting away. 
The Little Sisters of the Poor do not starve you. 

His tone is jesting. Joyce turns from him with a quick 
movement of disappointment. 

I do not pretend to waste away. Why should I? Have 
I not everything in the world, her lip quivers, to make 
me happy 

And you are going to remain in Eome, among cypress 
shades, and saints^ pictures, and malaria, for the sum- 
mer?^^ 

W’^hy do you ask?^^ 

Out of idle curiosity. Under Doctor Byrneses orders I 
have decided to go north next week. 

A flush like day-dawn stains Joyce Dormer^s face from 
chin to temple, then leaves it pale. 

Doctor Byrne has ordered you to the north — well, Mr. 
Tryan, I am glad. 

You are frank, at least. Miss Dormer 

Glad for your own sake. You have nothing in Eome 
to regret. 

That is true,^^ Eoger Tryan answers cheerfully. I 
shall leave nothing behind me in Eome, I hope, worth re- 
gretting. By the bye. Miss Dormer, instruct me as to what 
I am to do with your Stradivarius? Such a thing as pro- 
fane music was of course never heard, since Saint Cecilia^s 
days, in a convent. Shall I keep your violin until I can 
give it back to you in a Alter place and season 

At this question, at the coolness of voice with which the 
question is asked, Joyce Dormer^s spirit sinks to zero. 

Stradivarius will be more wanted by me than ever,^^ 
she answers, with a trembling attempt at lightness. I 
have not told you about my ambitious plans for the future 
— indeed, I was uncertain myself if they could be carried 
out until I got a written approval from poor mamma. A 
Naples letter arrived, two days ago, however, and — 


A BALLROOM REPENTANCE. 


265 


Bad news is coming!"^ interrupts Eoger Tryan. ‘‘If 
my name was mentioned in the Naples letter I prepare for 
the worst/^ 

“Do not be afraid, Mr. Tryan. The letter is full of 
quite commonplace business. My mother has gone through 
so much trouble about me/^ adds Joyce penitentially, 
“ that I had scarce courage at first to break open the seal. 
Happily, ever3rthihg is settled. I have her consent and my 
father^s also to my wishes. 

“ Which are— 

“ To study violin-playing for three years at the Stuttgart 
Conservatorium, not as an amateur, but professionally. 

Upon hearing this news Roger Tryan, for a little space^ 
stands mute. Then he puts his hand to his breast and 
draws forth a bunch of violets, pale of hue, scentless, as 
violets must be upon whose petals a Roman May sun has 
shone. 

“ Do you remember the violets you dropped on a certain 
terrace at Monte Carlo, just before Mrs. Dormer and the 
poet overtook us? I kept them — have you forgotten? — 
promising to give you some fresher ones next day. But 
next day, to me, was blank. 

Joyce shudders, although Tryan^s arm by this time holds 
her close. 

“ And now, here in Rome, I have been held prisoner by 
my illness. However, I have brought you your violets, at 
last — poor ones, for the violet season is over. What thanks 
do you give me?^^ 

“ I would to Heaven I had never gone to Monte Carlo, 
cries Joyce passionately, and, taking the violets, she lifts 
them to her lips. “ That foolish fancy has been the cause 
of all your troubles.’^ 

‘ ‘ If you had not gone to Monte Carlo I might be losing 
money there still— supposing that, by this time, I had a 
napoleon left to lose! If you had not gone to Monte Carlo 
you might have married Mr. Farintyre weeks ago,^^ says 
Tryan, ‘‘ in which case you may be sure I should have 
brought you no violets, faded or otherwise. Joyce, my 
dear/ ^ he resumes after a pause, the water-color sisters 
looking sterner and sterner, the canary in the refectory 
singing his loudest— is it fancy on Joyce ^s part that his 
song takes the minor key with the superfluous second of 
‘‘Carmen!'^ — “ I don't approve of this Stuttgart plan^ I 


266 


A BALLROOM- REPEJ^TANCE. 


am wholly against violin-playing as a profession for young 
women of your age. 

“ But by the time I had finished with Stuttgart I should 
be in my five-and-twentieth year/^ says Joyce^ vainly en- 
deavoring to steady her voice. am of age now, old 
enough, as poor mamma says, to know my own mind and 
choose for myself — 

Does Mrs. Dormer say that?^^ exclaims Roger Tryan. 

Well, then, I second her. I say choose! Joyce,^^ he 
pleads in a low and eager whisper, are you going to turn 
from me for the sake of crotchets and semiquavers, and 
gaining yourself a famous name in art.^ Your nursing 
saved my life. Make the life you saved worth living — 
marry me. 

Through yonder break amidst the cyipre^s gleams a 
stretch of the Coliseum ^s crumbling, grass-grown arches. 
Nearer at hand lies the Via Sacra, the road along which 
Roman legions once poured forth to victory, where Caesar 
walked abroad in purple, where Horace loitered, where 
Corinne and Oswald loved! And overhead is the sky of 
Italian summer, and birds^ voices trill softly to each other 
amidst the convent trees, and in a girPs heart are love and 
hope and happiness, as fresh as though Rome was in its 
prime. 

Poverty is a grim thing to accept when one comes to 
the point, says Roger Tryan, as he watches the shifting 
hues of her face. Still, I am not so absolutely ruined, so 
hopelessly an idler, but that we may look for bread and 
cheese, even yet. 

And there will be Stradivarius,^^ adds Joyce presently. 

In the old days you used to joke about my courtesying 
round for half-pence, in a spangled dress, at fairs. We 
must take life in earnest now. Let the future bring what 
it will — ^yes, Roger, and although I give up Stuttgart, I 
shall never be aMe to give up crotchets and semiquavers — 
there will be Stradivarius. 


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MTTNRO’S PTTBLtCATIONS. 

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20 Within an Inch of His Life. By 

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48 Thicker Than Water. By James 

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51 Dora Thorne. By the author of 

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52 The New Magdalen. By Wilkie 

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53 The Story of Ida. By Francesca 10 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring. By 

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55 The Three Guardsmen. By 

Alexander Dumas.- 20 

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57 Shirley. By Charlotte Brontd. . 20 

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63 The Spy. By J. Fenimore Coop- 

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67 Lorna Doone. By R. D. Black- 

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69 Madolin's Lover. By the author 

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72 Old Myddelton’s Money. By 

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73 Redeemed by Love. By the 

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74 Aurora Floyd. By Miss M. E. 

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75 Twenty Years After. By Alex- 

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76 Wife in Name Only. By the 

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84 Hard Times. By Charles Dick- 

ens 10 

85 A Sea Queen. By W. Clark 

Russell 20 

86 Belinda. By Rhoda Broughton 20 

87 Dick Sand; or, A Captain at 

Fifteen. By Jules Verne... ... 20 

88 The Privateersman. By Cap- 

tain Marryat 20 

89 The Red Eric. By R. M. Ballan- 

tyne 10 

90 Ernest Maltravers. By Sir E. 

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91 Barnaby Rudge, By Charles 

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92 Lord Lynne’s Choice. By the 

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93 Anthony Trollope’s Autobiogra- 

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94 Little Dorrit. By Charles Dick- 

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94 Little Dorrit. By Charles Dick- 

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95 The Fire Brigade. By R. M. 

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96 Fi ling the Bold. By R. M. Bal- 

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97 All in a Garden Fair. By Walter 

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98 A Woman-Hater. By Charles 

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101 Second Thoughts. By Rhoda 

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102 The Moonstone. By Wilkie 

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105 A Noble Wife. By John Saun- 

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106 Bleak House. By Charles Dick- 

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106 Bleak House. By Charles Dick- 

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107 Dombey and Son. By Charles 

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109 Little Loo. By W. Clark Rus- 

sell 20 

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116 Moths. By“Ouid'a” 20 152 

117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean. 

By W. H. G. Kingston 20 153 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford. and Eric 

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119 Monica, and A Rose DjatilPd. 

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120 Tom Brown’s School Daj^s at 

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121 Maid of Athens. By Justin Mc- 

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123 Swefet is Time Love. By “ The 

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131 Our Mutual Friend. By Charles 

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132 Master Humphrey’s Clock. By 

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134 The Witching Hour, and Other 167 

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135 A Great Heiress. By R. E. Fran- 168 

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136 “ That Last Rehearsal,” and 169 

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137 Uncle Jack. By Walter Besant 10 170 
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139 The Romantic Adventures of a 

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140 A Glorious Fortune. By Walter 173 

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142 Jenifer. By Annie Thomas 20 

143 One False, Both Fair. J. B. 176 

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144 Promises of Marriage. By 177 

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145 “ Storm-Beaten God and The 

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146 Love Finds the Way, and Other 179 

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147 Rachel Ray. By Anthony Trol- 180 

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148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. 181 

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Annan Water, By Robert Bu- 
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Lady Muriel’s Secret. By Jean 

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187 The Midnight Sun. By Fredrika 

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188 Idonea. By Anne Beale 20 

189 Valerie’s Fate. Mrs. Alexander 10 

190 Romance of a Black Veil. By 

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191 Harry Lorrequer. By Charles 

Lever 20 

193 At the World’s Mercy. By F. 

Warden 10 

193 The Rosary Folk. By G. Man- 

ville Fenn 10 

194 “ So Near, and Yet So Far !” By 

Alison 10 

195 “ The Way of the World.” By 

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196 Hidden Perils. By Mary Cecil 

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197 For Her Dear Sake. By Mary 

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198 A Husband’s Story 10 

199 The Fisher Village. By Anne 

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200 An Old Man’s Love. By An- 

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201 The Monastery. By Sir Walter 

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202 The Abbot. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

203 John Bull and His Island. By 

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204 Vixen. By Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

205 The Minister’s Wife. By Mrs. 

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206 The Picture, and Jack of All 

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207 Pretty Miss Neville. By B. M. 

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208 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, 

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209 John Holdsworth, Chief Mate. 

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210 Readiana: Comments on Cur- 

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211 The Octoroon. By Miss M. E. 

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212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dra- 

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213 A Terrible Temptation. Chas. 

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214 Put Yourself in His Place. By 

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215 Not Like Other Girls. B3’' Rosa 

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216 Foul Play. By Cliarles Reade. 20 

217 'Phe Man She Cared For. By 

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221 Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye. By 

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222 The Sim-Maid. By Miss Grant 20 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart. By W. 

Clark Russell 20 

224 The Arundel Motto. Mar/Cecil 

Hay 20 

225 The Giant’s Robe. By F. Anstey 20 

226 Friendship. By “ Ouida ” 20 

227 Nancy. By Rhoda Broughton. 20 

228 Princess Napraxine. By “ Oui- 

da ” 20 

229 Maid, Wife,’ ’or’ ’Widows ’ 'By 

Mrs. Alexander 10 

230 Dorothy Forster. By Walter 

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231 Griffith Gaunt, Charles Reade 20 

232 Love and Money ; or, A Perilous 

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233 “ I Say No or, the Love-Letter 


Answered. Wilkie Collins.... 20 

234 Barbara; or. Splendid Misery. 

Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

235 “It is Never Too Late to 

Mend.” Bv Charles Reade.. . 20 

236 Which Shall It Be? Mrs. Alex- 

ander 20 

237 Repented at Leisure. By the 

author of “ Dora Thorne ”... 20 

238 Pascarel. By “ Ouida” 20 

239 Signa. By “ Ouida ” 20 

240 Called Back. By Hugh Conway 10 

241 The Baby’s Grandmother. By 

L. B. Walford 10 

242 The Two Orphans. ByD’Ennery 10 

243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” First 

half. By Charles Lever 20 

243 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” Second 

half. By Charles Lever. .... 20 

244 A Great Mistake. By the author 

of “ Cherry ” 20 

245 Miss Tommy, and In a House- 

Boat. By Miss klulock 10 

246 A Fatal Dower. By the author 

of “ His Wedded Wife ” 10 

247 The Armourer’s Prentices. By 

Charlotte M. Yonge 10 

248 The House on the Marsh. F. 

Warden 10 

249 “ Prince Charlie’s Daughter.” 

By author of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Di- 

ana’s Discipline. By the au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 


251 The Daughter of the Stars, and 

Other Tales. By Hugh Con- 
way, author of “ Called Back” 10 

252 A Sinless Secret. By “Rita”.. 10 

253 The Amazon. By Carl Vosmaer 10 

254 The Wife’s Secret, and Fair but 


False. By the author of 
“Dora Thorne” 10 

255 The Mystery. By Mrs. Henry 

Wood 20 

256 Mr, Smith : A Part of His Life. 

By L. B. Walford 20 




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257 Beyond Recall. By Adeline Ser- 

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258 Cousins. By L. B. Walford .... 20 

259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. (A 

Sequel to “ The Count of 
Monte-Cristo.” By Alexander 
Dumas 10 

260 Propef Pride. By B. M. Croker 10 

261 A Fair Maid. By F. W. Robinson 20 

262 Tlie Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Parti By Alexander Dumas 20 

262 The Count of Monte Cristo. 

Part II. By Alexander Dumas 20 

263 An Ishmaelite. By Miss M. E. 


Braddon ’ . 20 

264 Piedoiiche, A French Detective. 

By Fortune Du Boisgobey — 10 

265 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love 

Affairs and Other Adventures. 

By William Black 20 

266 The Water-Babies. A Fa‘iry Tale 

for a Land-Baby. By the Rev. 
Charles Kingsley 10 

267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls’ 

Conspiracy. By Mrs. Alex. 
McVeigli Miller 20 

268 Lady Gay’s Pride; or. The 

Miser’s Treasure. By Mrs. 
Alex. McVeigh Miller 20 

269 Lancaster’s Choice. By Mrs. 

Alex. McVeigh Miller 20 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part I. 

By Eugene Sue 20 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part II. 

By Eugene Sue 20 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. 

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271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. 

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272 The Little Savage. By Captain 

Marry at 10 

273 Love and Mirage ; or, The Wait- 

ing on an Island. By M. 
Betham Edwards 10 

274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 

Princess of Great Britain and 
Ireland. Biographical Sketch 
and Letters 10 

275 The Three Brides. Chariot?'.© M. 

Yonge 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses. By 

Florence Marryat (Mrs. Fran- 
cis Lean) 10 

277 The Surgeon’s Daughters. By 

Mrs. Henry Wood. A Man of 
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278 For Life and Love. By Alison . 10 

279 Little Goldie. Mrs. Sumner Hay- 

den 20 

280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So- 

ciety. By Mrs. E’orrester 10 

281 The Squire’s Legacy. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 20 

282 Donal Grant. By George Mac- 

Donald — 20 

283 The Sin of a Lifetime. By the 

author of ” Dora Thorne ”... 10 

284 Doris. By “The Duchess ”, .. 10 

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NO. 

285 

286 

287 

288 

289 

290 

291 

292 

293 

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301 

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314 

315 

316 


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The Gambler’s Wife 20 

Deldee ; or. The Iron Hand. By 

F. Warden 20 

At War With Herself. By the 
author of “ Dora Thorne ”... 10 
From Gloom to Sunlight. By 
the author of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 
John Bull’s Neighbor in Her 
True Light. By a “ Brutal 

Saxon ” 10 

Nora’s Love Test. By Mary Cecil 

Hay 20 

Love’s Warfare. By the author 

of Dora Thorne” 10 

A Golden Heart. By the author 

of “Dora Thorne” 10 

The Shadow of a Sin. By the 
author of “ Dora Thorne ”.. . lu 
Hilda. By the author of “ Dora 

Thorne” 10 

A Woman’s War. By the author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

A Rose in Thorns. By the au- 
thor of “ Dora Thome ” 10 

Hilary’s Folly. By the author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

Mitchelhurst Place. By Marga- 
ret Veley 10 

The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride 
from the Sea. By the author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of 
Love. By the author of “ Dora 

Thorne ” 10 

Dark Days. By Hugh Conway. 10 
The Blatchford Bequest. By 

Hugh Conway 10 

Ingledew House, and More Bit- 
ter than Death. By the author 

of “ Dora Thome ” 10 

In Cupid’s Net. By the author 

of “Dora Thorne” 10 

A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwen- 
doline’s Dream. By the au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

A Golden Dawn, and Love for a 
Day. By the author of “ Dora 

Thorne” 10 

Two Kisses, and Like No Other 
Love. By the author of ” Dora 

Thorne” 10 

Beyond Pardon 20 

The Pathfinder. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

The Prairie. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

Two Years Before the Mast. By 

R. H. Dana, Jr 20 

A Week in Killarney. By ” The 

Duchess” 10 

The Lover’s Creed. By Mrs. 

Cashel Hoey 20 

Peril. By Jessie Fothergill — 20 
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by Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

Sworn to Silence ; or. Aline Rod- 
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817 By Mead and Stream. Charles 

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318 The Pioneers; or, The Sources 
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819 Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 

Fables. By R. E. Francillon . 10 

320 A Bit of Human Nature. By 

David Christie Murray 10 

321 The Prodigals : And Their In- 

heritance. By Mrs. Oliphant 10 

322 A Woman’s Love-Story 10 

S2S A Willful Maid 20 

324 In Luck at Last. B}'^ Walter 

Besant 10 

325 The Portent. By George Mac- 

donald 10 

326 Phantastes. A Faerie Romance 

for Men and Women. By 

George Macdonald 10 

827 Raymond’s Atonement. (From 
the German of E. Werner.) 

By Christina Tyrrell 20 

328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By 

F. Du Boisgobey. First half. 20 

328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By 

F. Du Boisgobey. Second half 20 

329 The Polish Jew. ByErckhiann- 


Chatrian 10 

330 May Blossom ; or, Between Two 

Loves. By Margaret Lee 20 

331 Gerald. By Eleanor C. Price.. 20 

332 Judith Wynne. A Novel 20 

333 Frank Fairlegh ; or, Scenes 

from the Life of a Private 
Pupil. By Frank E. Smedley 2Ct 

334 A Marriage of Convenience. By 

Harriett Jay 10 

335 The White Witch. A Novel. ... 20 

336 Philistia. By Cecil Power 20 

837 Memoirs and Resolutions of 

Adam Graeme of Mossgray, 
Including Some Chronicles of 
the Borough of Fendie. By 
Mrs. Oliphant 20 

338 The Family Difficulty. By Sarah 

Doudney 10 

339 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid. 

By Mrs. Alexander 10 

340 Under Which King? By Comp- 

ton Reade 20 

341 Madolin Rivers ; or, The Little 

Beauty of Red Oak Seminary. 

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342 The Baby, and One New Year’s 

Eve. By “ The Duchess ” — 10 

343 The Talk of the Town. By 


344 “The Wearing of the Green.” 

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345 Aladam. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

346 Tumbledown Farm. By Alan 

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347 As Avon Flows. By Henry Scott 

Vince 20 

348 From Post to Finish. A Racing 

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349 The Two Admirals. A Tale of 

the Sea. By J. Fenirnore 
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350 Diana of the Crossways. By 

George Meredith 10 

351 The House on the Moor. By 

Mrs. Oliphant 20 

352 At Any Cost. By Edward Gar- 

rett 10 

353 The Black Dwarf, and A Leg- 

end of Montrose, By Sir Wal- 
ter Scott 20 

354 The Lottery of Life. A Story 

of New York Twenty Years 
Ago. By John Brougham... 20 
355 -That Terrible Man. By W, E. 
Norris. The Princess Dago- 
mar of Poland. By Heinrich 


Felbermann 10 

356 A Good Hater. By Frederick 

Boyle 20 

357 John. A Love Story. By Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

358 AVithin the Clasp. By J. Ber- 

wick Harwood 20 

359 The Water-Witch. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

360 Ropes of Sand. By R. E. Fran- 

cillon 20 

361 The Red Rover. A Tale of the 

Sea. By J. Fenirnore Cooper 20 

362 The Bride of Lammermoor. 

By Sir Walter Scott 20 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter. By 

Sir Walter Scott 10 

364 Castle Dangerous. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 10 

365 George Christy; or. The Fort- 

unes of a Minstrel. By Tony 
Pastor 20 

366 The Mysterious Hunter; or, 

The Man of Death. By Capt. 

L. C. Carleton 20 

367 Tie and Trick. By Hawley Smart 20 

368 The Southern Star; or. The Dia- 

mond Land. By Jules Verne 20 

369 Miss Bretherton. By Mrs. Hum- 

phry Ward 10 

370 LucyCrofton. By Mrs. Oliphant 10 

371 Margaret Maitland. By Mrs. Oli- 

phant 20 

372 Phyllis’ Probation. By the au- 

thor of “ His W’^edded Wife ”, 10 

373 Wing-and-Wing. J. Fenirnore 

Cooper 20 

374 The Dead Man’s Secret ; or. The 

Adventures of a Medical Stu- 
dent. By Dr. Jupiter Paeon.. 20 

375 A Ride to Khiva. By Capt. Fred 

Burnaby, of the Royal Horse 
Guards 20 

376 The Crime of Christmas-Day. 

By the author of “ My Duc- 
ats and My Daughter 10 

377 Magdalen Hepburn: A Story 

of the Scottish Reformation. 

By Mrs. Oliphant 20 


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379 Home as Found. (Sequel to 

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380 Wyandotte; or. The Hutted 

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381 The Red Cardinal. By Frances 

Elliot 10 

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383 Introduced to Society. By Ham- 
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884 On Horseback Through Asia* 
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385 The Headsman ; or, The Abbaye 

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386 Led Astray ; or, “La Petite Comt- 

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387 The Secret of the Cliffs. By 

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888 Addie’s Husband ; or, Through 
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389 Ichabod. By Bertha Thomas.. . 

390 Mildred Trevanion. By “ The 

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391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian. By 

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392 Peveril of the Peak. By Sir Wal- 

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393 The Pirate. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

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395 The Archipelago on Fire. By 

Jules Verne 10 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement. By 

Rosa Nouchette Carey *. 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln ; or, The Leaguer 

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398 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan. 

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399 Miss Brown. By Vernon Lee. . 20 

400 The W^t of Wish-Ton-Wish. 

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401 Waverley. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

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405 My Friends and I. Edited by 

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409 Roy’s Wife. By G. J. Whyte- 

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466 Between Two Loves. By Char- 

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469 Lady Darner’s Seci*et. By Char- 

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470 Evelyn’s Foll 5 \ By Charlotte 

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471 Thrown on the World. Bv Char- 

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472 The Wise Women of Inverness. 

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473 A Lost Son. By Mary Linskill. 10 

474 Serapis. By George Ebers 20 

475 The Prima Donna’s Husband. 

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476 Between 'J’wo Sins. By Char- 

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477 Affinities. A Romance of To- 

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478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daughter 

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480 Married in Haste. Edited by 

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482 A Vagrant Wife. ByF. Warden 20 

483 Betwixt My Love and Me. . By 

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484 Although He Was a Lord, and 

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485 Tinted Vapours. By J. Maclaren 


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486 Dick’s Sweetheart. By “The 

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487 Put to the Test. Edited by Miss 

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488 Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. 

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489 Rupert Godwin. By Miss M. E. 

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490 A Second Life. Mrs. Alexander 20 

491 Society in London. Bj'- A For- 

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492 Mignon ; or. Booties’ Baby. By 

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493 Colonel Enderby’s Wife. By 

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495 Mount Royal. By Miss M. E. 

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497 The Lady’s Mile. By Miss M. 

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498 Only a Clod. By Miss M. E. 

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499 The Cloven Foot. By Miss M. 

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500 Adrian Vidal. By W. E. Norris. 20 

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502 Carriston’s Gift. By Hugh Con- 

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567 Dead Men’s Shoes. By Miss M. 

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571 Paul Crew’s Story. By Alice 

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576 Her Martyrdom. By Charlotte 

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578 Mathias Sandorf. By Jules 

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more 20 

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617 Like Dian’s Kiss. By “ Rita ”. 20 

618 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 

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620 Between the Heather and the 

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624 Primus in Indis. By M. J. 

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625 Erema; or. My Father’s Sin. 

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626 A Fair Mystery. By Charlotte 

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627 White Heather. By Wm. Black 20 

628 Wedded Hands. By the author 

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629 Cripps, the Carrier. By R. D. 

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630 Cradock Nowell. By R. D. 

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631 Christowell. By R. D. Black- 

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632 Clara Vaughan. By R. D. Black- 

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633 The Maid of Sker. By R. D. 

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633 The Maid of Sker. By R. D. 

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634 The Unforeseen. By Alice 

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635 Murder or Manslaughter? By 

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637 What's His Olfence ? A Novel. 20 

638 In Quarters with the 25th (The 

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639 Othinar. By “Ouida” 20 

640 Nuttie’s Father. By Charlotte 

BI. Yonge 20 

641 The Rabbi’s Spell. By Stuart 

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642 Britta. By George Temple 10 

643 The Sketch-book of Geoffrey 

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644 A Girton Girl. By Mr^. Annie 

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646 Mrs. Smith of Longmains. By 
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646 The Blaster of the Mine. By 

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647 Goblin Gold. By Blay Crom- 

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648 The Angel of the Bells. By F. 

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649 Cradle and Spade. By William 

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651 “Self or Bearer ” By. Walter 

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654 “ Us.” An Old-fashioned Story. 

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655 The Open Door, and The Por- 

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656 The Golden Flood. By R. E. 

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657 Christmas Angel. By B. L. 

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658 The History of a Week. By 

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659 The Waif of the “ Cynthia.” By 

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663 Handy Andy. By Samuel 

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664 RoryO’BIore. By Samuel Lover 20 

665 The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest. 

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667 The Golden Lion of Granpere. 

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669 The Philosophy of Whist. By 

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670 The Rose and the Ring. By W. 

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671 Don Gesualdo. By “ Ouida.”. • 10 

672 In Blaremma. By “ Ouida.” 


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672 In Blaremma. By “ Ouida.” 

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673 Story of a Sin. By Helen B. 

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674 First Person Singular. By 

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675 Mrs. Dymond. By Miss Thack- 

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676 A Child’s History of England. 

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677 Griselda. By the author of “ A 

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678 Dorothy’s Venture. By Blary 

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679 Where Two Ways Meet. By 

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680 Fast and Loose. By Arthur 

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681 A Singer’s Story. By May Laf- 

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682 In the BTiddle Watch. By W. 

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683 The Bachelor Vicar of New- 

forth. By Mi*s. J. Harcourt- 
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684 Last Days at Apswich. 10 

685 England Under Gladstone. 1880 

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686 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and 

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687 A Country Gentleman. By BIrs. 

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688 A Blan of Honor. By John 

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689 The Heir Presumptive. By 

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690 Far From the Bladding Crowd. 

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691 Valentine Strange. By David 

Christie Blurray 20 

692 The Blikado, and Other Comic 

Operas. Written by W. S. 
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693 E'elix Holt, the Radical. By 

George Eliot 20 

694 John Blaidment. By Julian 

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695 Hearts: Queen, Knave, and 

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696 Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Bliss 

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697 The Pretty Jailer. By F. Du 

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698 A Life’s Atonement. By David 

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699 The Sculptor’s Daughter. By 

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700 Ralph the Heir. By Anthony 

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700 Ralph the Heir. By Anthony 

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701 The Woman in White. Wilkie 

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701 The Woman in White. Wilkie 

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702 Man and Wife. By Wilkie Col- 

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702 Man and Wife. By Wilkie Col- 

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703 A House Divided Against Itself. 

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704 Prince Otto. R. L. Stevenson. 10 

705 The Woman I Loved, and the 

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706 A Crimson Stain. By Annie 

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707 Silas Marner. The Weaver of 

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708 Ormond. By Maria Edgeworth 20 

709 Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra 

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711 A Cardinal Sin. Hugh Conway 20 

712 For Maimie’s Sake. Grant Allen 20 

713 “Cherry Ripe!’’ By Helen B. 

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714 ’Twixt Love and Duty. By 

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715 I Have Lived and Loved. By 

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716 Victor and Vanquished. By 

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717 Beau Tancrede; or. The Mar- 

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718 Unfairly Won. By Mrs. Power 

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719 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. By 

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720 Paul Clifford. By Sir E. Bulvver 

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721 Dolores. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

722 What’s Mine’s Mine. By George 

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723 Mauleverer’s Millions. By T. 

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724 My Lord and My Lady. By 

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725 My Ten Years’ Imprisonment. 

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726 My Hero. By Mrs. Forrester... 20 

727 Fair Women. By Mrs. Forrester ^ 

728 Janet’s Repentance. By George 

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729 Mignon. Mrs. Forrester 20 


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730 The Autobiography of Benja- 

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731 The Bayou Bride. By Mrs. Mary 

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732 From Olympus to Hades. By 

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733 Lady Branksmere. By “The 

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734 Viva. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

735 Until the Day Breaks. By 

Emily Spender 20 

736 Roy and Viola. Mrs. Forrester 20 

737 Aunt Rachel. By David Christie 

Murray 10 

738 In the Golden Days. By Edna 

Lyall 20 

739 The Caged Lion. By Charlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

740 Rhona. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

741 The Heiress of Hilldrop; or, 

The Romance of a Young 
Girl. By Charlotte M. Braeme, 
author of “ Dora Thorne ”... 20 

742 Love and Life. By Charlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. By W. Clark 

Russell. 1st half , 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. By W. Clark 

Russell. 2d half 20 

744 Diana Carew; or. For a Wom- 

an’s Sake. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

745 For Another’s Sin; or, A Strug- 

gle for Love. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 

Thorne” 20 

746 Cavalry Life ; or. Sketches and 

Stories in Barracks and Out. 

By J. S. Winter 20 

747 Our Sensation Novel. Edited 

by Justin H. McCarthy, M.P.. 10 

748 Hurrish: A Study. By the 

Hon. Emily Lawless 20 

7'49 Lord Vanecourt’s Daughter. By 

Mabel Collins 20 

750 An Old Story of My Farming 
Days. By Fritz Reuter. First 

half 20 

750 An Old Story of My Farming 
Days. By Fritz Reuter. Second 
half 20 


751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 
gators. Jules Verne. 1st half 20 

751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 

gators. Jules Verne. 2d half 20 

752 Jackanapes, and Other Stories. 

By Juliana Horatia Ewing. . 10 

753 King Solomon’s Mines. By H. 

Rider Haggard 20 

754 How to be Happy Though Mar- 

ried. By a Graduate in the 
University of Matrimony 20 

755 Margery Daw. A Novel 20 

756 The Strange Adventures of Cap- 

tain Dangerous. A Narrative 
in Plain English. Attempted 
by George Augustus Sala — 20 

757 Love’s Martyr. By Laurence 

Alma Tadema 10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY -Pocket Edition 


NO. PRICE. 

758 “ Good-bye, Sweetheart!” By 

Rhoda Broughton 20 

759 In Shallow Waters. By Annie 

Arniitt 20 

760 Aurelian ; or, Rome in the Third 

Century. By William Ware.. 20 

761 Will Weatherhelm. By Wm. 

H. G. Kingston 20 

762 Impressions of Theophrastus 

Such. By George Eliot 10 

769 The Midshipman, Marmaduke 

Merry. By Wm. H. G. Kingston 20 

764 The Evil Genius. By Wilkie 

Collins 20 

765 Not WTsely, But Too Well. By 

Rhoda Broughton 20 

766 No, XIII; or, the Story of the 

Lost Vestal. By Emma Mar- 
shall 10 

767 Joan. By Rhoda Broughton... 20 

768 Red as a Rose is She. By Rhoda 

Broughton 20 

769 Cometh Up as a Flower. By 

Rhoda Broughton 20 

770 The Castle of Otranto. By 

Horace Walpole 10 

771 A Mental Struggle. By “The 

Duchess” 20 

772 Gascoyne, the Sandal -Wood 

Trader. By R. M. Ballantyne 20 

773 The Mark of Cain. By Andrew 

Lang 10 

774 The Life and Travels of Mungo 

Park 10 

775 The Three Clerks. By Anthony 

Trollope 20 

776 P^re Goriot. By H. De Balzac, 20 

777 The Voyages and Travels of Sir 

John Maundeville, Kt, 10 

778 Society’s Verdict. BytheAuthor 

of “ My Marriage” 20 

779 Doom ! An Atlantic Episode. 

By Justin H. McCarthy, M.P. 10 

780 Rare Pale Margaret. By author 

of “ What’s His Offence?” 20 

781 The Secret Dispatch. By James 

Grant 10 

782 The Closed Door. By F. Du 

Boisgobey. 1st half 20 

782 The Closed Door. By F. Du 

Boisgobey. 2d half 20 

783 Chantry House. By Charlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

784 The Two Miss Flemings. By the 

author of “ What’s His 

Offence?” 20 

786 The Haunted Chamber. By 

“ The Duchess ” 10 

786 Ethel Mildmay’s Follies. By 
author of “ Petite’s Xiomance” 20 


NO. PRICE. 

787 Court Royal. A Story of Cross 

Currents. By S. Baring-Gould 20 

788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 

By Maria Edgeworth 20 

789 Through the Looking-Glass, 

and What Alice Found There. 

By Lewis Carroll. With fifty 
illustrations by John Tenniel. 20 

790 The Chaplet of Peaiis ; or. The 

White and Black Ribaumont. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 1st half 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or. The 

White and Black Ribaumont. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 2d half 20 

791 The Mayor of Casterbridge. By 


Thomas Hardy 20 

792 Set in Diamonds. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Right Hon. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. First half 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Right Hon. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. Second half. . . 20 

794 Beaton’s Bargain. By Mrs. Al- 

exander 20 

795 Sam’s Sweetheart. By Helen 

B. Mathers 20 

796 In a Grass Country. A Story of 

Love and Sport. By Mrs. H. 
Lovett Cameron 20 

797 Look Before You Leap. By- 

Mrs. Alexander 20 

798 The Fashion of this World. By’’ 

Helen B. Mathers 10 

799 My Lady Green Sleeved By 

Helen B. Mathers... 20 

800 Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 

from the Life of a Spinster. 
Charlotte M. Yonge, 1st half 20 


800 Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 

from the Life of a Spinster. 
Charlotte M. Y’onge. 2d half 20 

801 She Stoops to Copquer, and 

The Good-Natured Man. By 


Oliver Goldsmith 10 

802 A Stern Chase. Mrs.Cashel-Hoey 20 

803 Major Frank. By A. L. G. Bos- 

boom-Toussaint 20 

804 Living or Dead. By Hugh Con- 

way, author of “ Called Back ” 20 

805 The Freres. By Mrs. Alex»an- 

der. First half 20 

805 The Freres. By Mrs. Alexan- 
der. Second half 20 

807 If Love be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs 20 

808 King Arthur. Not a Love Story. 

By Miss Mulock 20 

810 The Secret of Her Life. By Ed- 
ward Jenkins 20 


The foregoing works, contained in The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, 
are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any’ address, postage free, on 
receipt of price. Pa'irties. ordering by mail will please order by numbers. Ad- 
dress 

GEORGE MUNRO, 

I»1UNI|0’S EUBL.ISHI1NG HOUSE, 

P, 0. Box 3761. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, N, Y. 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY -Pocket Edition 

LATEST ISSUES: 


NO. PRICK. 

669 Pole on Whist 20 


786 Ethel Mildmay’s Follies. By Au- 

thor of “ Petite’s Romance.”.. 20 

787 Court Royal. A Story of Cross 

Currents. By S. Baring-Gould 20 

788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 

By Maria Edgeworth 20 

789 Through the Looking-Glass, 

and What Alice Found There. 

By Lewis Carroll. With fifty 
illustrations by John Tenniel. 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or. The 

White and Black Ribaumont. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 1st half 20 

790 I'he Chaplet of Pearls ; or, The 

White and Black Ribaumont. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 2d half 20 

791 The Mayor of Casterbridge. By 


Thomas Hardy 20 

792 Set in Diamonds. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of ” Dora 
Thorne ” 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Right Hon. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. First half 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Right Hon. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. Second half. .. 20 

794 Beaton’s Bargain. By Mrs. Al- 

exander 20 

795 Sam’s Sweetheart. By Helen 

B. Mathers 20 

796 In a Grass Country. By Mrs. H. 

Lovett Cameron 20 

797 Look Before You Leap. By 

Mrs. Alexander 20 

798 The Fashion of this World. By 

Helen B. Mathers 10 

799 My Lady Green Sleeves. By 

Helen B. Mathers 20 


800 Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes 
from the Life of a Spinster. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 1st half 20 

800 Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 

from the Life of a Spinster. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 2d half 20 

801 She Stoops to Conquer, and The 

Good-Natured Man. By Oliver 


Goldsmith 10 

802 A Stern Chase. Mrs.Cashel-Hoey 20 

803 Major Frank. By A. L. G. Bos- 

boom-Toussaiut 20 

804 Living or Dead. By Hugh Con- 

way, author of “ Called Back ” 20 

805 The lYeres. By Mrs. Alexan- 

der. First half 20 

805 The Freres. By Mrs. Alexan- 
der. Second half 20 


NO. PRICK. 

806 Her Dearest Foe. By Mrs. Alex- 
ander. First half 20 

806 Her Dearest Foe. By Mrs. Alex- 

ander. Second half 20 

807 If Love be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs 20 

808 King Arthur. Not a Love Story. 

By Miss Mulock 20 

809 Witness Bly Hand. By the au- 

thor of ‘‘Lady Gwendolen’s 
Tryst” 10 

810 The Secret of Her Life. By Ed- 

ward Jenkins ‘20 

811 The Head Station. By BIrs. 

Campbell-Praed 20 

812 No Saint. By Adeline Sergeant 20 

813 Army Society. Life in a Garri- 

son Town. By John Strange 
Winter 10 

814 The Heritage of Langdale. By 

BIrs. Alexander 20 

815 Ralph Wilton’s Weird. By BIrs. 

Alexander 10 

816 Rogues and Vagabonds. By 

George R. Sims, author of 
“’Ostler Joe” 20 

817 Stabbed in the Dark. By BIrs. 

E. Lynn Linton 10 

818 Pluck. By John Strange Winter 10 

819 A Fallen Idol. By F. Anstey. . . 20 

820 Doris’s Fortune. By Florence 

Warden 10 

821 The World Between Them. By 

Charlotte BI. Braeme, author 
of “Dora Thorne.” 20 

822 A Passion Flower. A Novel 20 

823 The Heir of the Ages. By James 

Payn 20 

824 Her Own Doing. W. E. Norris 10 

825 The Blaster Passion. By Flor- 

ence Blarryat 20 

826 Cynic Fortune. By D. Christie 

Blurray 20 

827 Effie Ogilvie. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

828 The Prettiest Woman in War- 

saw. By Blabel Collins 20 

829 The Actor’s Ward. By the au- 

thor of “ A Fatal Dower ”... 20 

830 Bound by a Spell. By Hugh 

Conway, author of “Called 
Back” 20 

831 Pomegranate Seed. By the au- 

thor of “ The Two Bliss Flem- 
ings,” etc 20 

832 Kidnapped. By Robert Louis 

Stevenson. 20 

833 Ticket No. “9672.” By Jules 

Verne. First half 10 

834 A Ballroom Repentance. Byt^*.*,^ 

BIrs. Annie Edwards 20 • 


The foregoing works, contained in The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, 
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Cl.F0SS 

GEORGE MUNRO, 

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P. O. Box 3751 


NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS 


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Handsomely Bound in Clotb. 12mo. Price $1.00. 


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BY MISS JULIET CORSON, 

Author of “ Meals for the Million,” etc., etc. 
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PRICE : HANESOKELY BOUND IN CLOTH, 11.00. 

A COMPREHENSIVE COOK BOOK 

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Tli« Best and Most Economical Methods of Cookintr Meats, Fish, 
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Miss Corson is the best American writer on cooking. All of her recipes 
hare been carefully tested in the New York School of Cookery. If her direc- 
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HOTHTN-a NrEOESSARY TO 

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With Forty-two Beautiful Illustrations hy John TennieL. 

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Philosophy of Whist. 

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r4iir I.— THE PHILOSOPHY OF WHIST PLAY. 

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^ No. 3. Mrs. 8uiitli’s Doarders’ Dialogues. 

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No. 1. Vot I Know ’Bout Gruel Societies Speaker. 

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r. a Box 87M 




!B^ CURIOUS ADVERTISEMENT OF 100 YEARS AGO U 


gives 

'com- 

-plexiofls 

2IS 

vnlo 

new 

mOk 

^nd 

ripe 

cherries 


Comely dames, brave squires, pretty liUleii 3 iss& 
6 smart masters, regularly use 

OAP 

Tears —Soapmaker ly ye 
PeariSoap can be bought aiallye'S/iopps 


The New York Monthly Fashion Bazar. 


A NEW STORY AND PROBABLY THE LAST 
By Mary Cecil Hay, 

ENTITLED, 

“A WICKED GIRL,”' 

WILL BE COMMENCED IN THE JULY NUMBER 

OF THE 

New York Monthly Fashion Bazar. 


We give below the Author’s letter in regard to the story: — 

MR. GEORGE MUNRO: 

Dear Sir, — Since writing to you I have decided not to issue my last 
story here as a fellow to “Called Back,” but, as it is certain to be my 
last work, to bring it out, through Hurst & Blackett, for twelve months (as be- 
fore), then through Maxwell— not having it to run in serial here at all. But I 
am quite willing you should issue it as a serial in America, on the old terms, if 
you care to; and, if so, you can begin on any date you choose. I ask you first, 
because you had “ Lester’s Secret,” and “ Dorothy’s Venture,” etc. But I must 
beg you, if you decline^ to wire me “ No,” as I shall wire then to another house. 
You will pardon this request, as my serious illness makes me wish to have these 
matters arrwiged ; but I will give directions, in case I am not here to receive 
your letter or cable. I am preparing the MS. in seven parts (it is called “ A 
Wicked Girl a good title, do you not think?), and will register them all to 
you on receipt of the old terms— duplicates to follow; or if you prefer to wire 
“ Yes,” I will mail them before waiting for your letter, as you will be tied to no 
date for commencing, as I have refused to issue here in any serial. Many 
thanks for the copies of my short stories; many thanks, also, for your pleasant 
letter. It gives me a very glad sensation, after all, to feel that my last tale will 
appear in America in only American dress. 

Yours, very truly, 

MARY CECIL HAY. 

“ A WICKED GIRL ” will be commenced in the July number 
of the Bazar. 


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